J. M. Adovasio

J. M. Adovasio received his undergraduate degree in Anthropology from the University of Arizona in 1965 and Ph.D. in Anthropology from the University of Utah in 1970. Since that time, he has served as a Post Doctoral Fellow at the Smithsonian Institution (1972 1973) and as Professor and Chairman of the Department of Anthropology at the University of Pittsburgh (1973 - 1990). In 1990, Adovasio moved to Erie, Pennsylvania, to assume the positions of Chairman of the Department of Anthropology/Archaeology and Director of Mercyhurst Archaeological Institute. He has since been appointed Provost, Senior Counselor to the President, and Dean of the Zurn School of Natural Sciences and Mathematics.

Though probably best known for his excavations at Meadowcroft Rockshelter in southwestern Pennsylvania, and his attendant contributions to the highly controversial Pre-Clovis/Clovis debate, Adovasio is generally considered to be the world’s leading authority in the arena of perishable artifact analysis. Since 1970, he has published more than 400 books, book chapters, manuscripts, and technical papers. These notably include The First Americans (with Jake Page) and the Invisible Sex (with Olga Soffer and Jake Page).

David Pedler received a BA from the University of Toronto in 1979. He has worked as an editor, writer, illustrator, and GIS specialist at Mercyhurst Archaeological Institute since 1991.

Relevant Publications:

Adovasio, J. M., and David R. Pedler (2005) A Long View of Deep Time at Meadowcroft Rockshelter. In Paleoamerican Origins: Beyond Clovis, edited by Robson Bonnichsen, Bradley T. Lepper, Dennis Stanford, and Michael R. Waters, pp. 23–28. Center for the Study of the First Americans, Department of Anthropology, Texas A&M University, College Station.

Adovasio, J. M., and David R. Pedler (2005) Peopling of North America. In North American Archaeology, edited by Timothy R. Pauketat and Diana DiPaolo Loren, pp. 30–55. Blackwell, Oxford.

Pedler, David R., and James M. Adovasio (2011) The Peopling of the Americas. In Peuplements et Prehistoire en Americques, edited by Denis Vialou, pp. 55–67. Collection Documents Prehistoriques No. 28. Comité des Travaux Historiques et Scientifiques, Paris.

The Ones that Still Won't Go Away

Since the seminal discoveries at what for all intents and purposes is the Clovis type locality at Blackwater Draw, New Mexico in 1933, more than 500 archaeological sites in North and South America have been claimed to be older than the Clovis horizon now fixed at 13,500-13,000 calendar years ago. As each of these sites was sequentially and often vitriolically debunked and dismissed, the notion that the makers of Clovis fluted points were the first colonizers of the New World was powerfully reinforced. As it slowly passed from a scientific peopling paradigm to pseudo-theological dogma, the Clovis-first model assumed a behavioral dimension as well as maintained a chronological one. Not only were the first inhabitants of the Americas producers of highly distinctive points, they were a veritable "culture" whose spear-wielding members were rapidly moving, highly specialized, big-game focused hunters without parallel in the history of the planet. Beginning in the early 1970s, a series of far-flung discoveries in widely separated parts of the Americas began to systematically unravel the chronological and behavioral underpinnings of Clovis-first. These pivotal loci include Meadowcroft Rockshelter in Pennsylvania, Monte Verde in Chile, Cactus Hill in Virginia, the Nenana Complex sites in Alaska, and, most recently, the Deborah L. Friedkin locality and its "sister" site of Gault in central Texas. Initially greeted with scorn, these sites and others in conjunction with linguistic and genetic data would collectively cause one foreign observer to recently note "Clovis-first ist todt" (Karge 2011)! The salient characteristics of several of these sites is detailed and an assessment of their historical role in the collapse of a venerable paradigm is offered.

David G. Anderson

Department of Anthropology
University of Tennessee
Knoxville, Tennessee
USA

David G. Anderson is a Professor and Associate Head of the Department of Anthropology at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville. He received his PhD from Michigan in 1990, an MA, from the University of Arkansas in 1979, and his BA from Case Western Reserve University in 1972. 1972), with all three degrees in Anthropology. He has conducted archaeological fieldwork in many parts of the US and in the Caribbean, and on sites of all time periods, although he considers himself first and foremost a southeastern archaeologist, having lived in the region most of his adult life. His research include exploring the development of cultural complexity in Eastern North America from initial colonization onwards, climate change and its impact on human societies, and developing technical and popular syntheses of archaeological research. He is the founding director of PIDBA (Paleoindian Database of the Americas) available online at http://pidba.utk.edu/. His research is documented in some 350 publications and meeting papers, including some 40 books and monographs. Additional biographical data is available on the web at http://web.utk.edu/~anthrop/faculty/anderson.html  and at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_G._Anderson .

Relevant Publications:

Anderson, David G., D. Shane Miller, Stephen J. Yerka, J. Christopher Gillam, Erik N. Johanson, Derek T. Anderson, Albert C. Goodyear, and Ashley M. Smallwood (2010) PIDBA (Paleoindian Database of the Americas) 2010: Current Status and Findings. Archaeology of Eastern North America 38:63-90.

Anderson, David G., Stephen J. Yerka, and J. Christopher Gillam (2010) Employing High Resolution Bathymetric Data to Infer Possible Migration Routes of Pleistocene Populations. Current Research in the Pleistocene 27:60-64.

Anderson, David G. (2010) Human Settlement in the New World: Multidisciplinary Approaches, the ‘Beringian’ Standstill, and the Shape of Things to Come. In Human Variation in the Americas: The Integration of Archaeology and Biological Anthropology, edited by Benjamin M. Auerbach, pp. 311-346. Center for Archaeological Investigations, Occasional Paper 38, Southern Illinois University, Carbondale.

The Initial Human Colonization and Settlement of Interior North America

The first evidence for widespread settlement in North America dates to about 13,000 calendar years ago, when fluted projectile points of the Clovis tradition are found widely dispersed over the landscape. But how much earlier were the Americas settled, and when did this occur? How, furthermore, did people arrive in and then move through the Americas. A number of possible routes have been proposed, some more likely and supported by evidence than others. Eastern North America, where dense fluted point concentrations are observed in the Clovis era, could have been reached by people traveling along major river systems or, one crossing to the Atlantic, east and north along the coast? One primary route long suggested was through an opening in the ice sheets in western Canada. This makes perfect sense given that people were indeed present in interior Alaska 14,000 years ago. But what if, as has been argued, and as evidence increasingly suggests, people were here well before the ice free corridor opened? If they were moving down the west coast, how then do we get people into the interior of North America? The answers, consideration of geography suggests, are not as obvious as we might think.

William Andrefsky, Jr.

Department of Anthropology
Washington State University
Pullman, Washington
USA

Bill Andrefsky became interested in stone tool technology at the age of 10 when he read about tools made by early human in Olduvai Gorge.  In 1984 he earned his Ph.D. degree from Binghamton University.  His research investigated the morphology and lineages of projectile points from archaic sites.  Since then he has held academic positions at University of Alaska, Southern Illinois University, and at Washington State University where he is currently Edward R. Meyer Distinguished Professor in Anthropology.

Relevant Publications:

Andrefsky, Jr., William (2008) Lithic Technology: Measures of Production, Use and Curation. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, UK.

Andrefsky, Jr., William (2005) Lithics:  Macroscopic Approaches to Analysis. Second edition. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.

Andrefsky Jr., William (2001) Lithic Debitage: Context, Form and Meaning. University of Utah Press, Salt Lake City.

Fingerprinting Stone Tool Production Processes: Towards an Identification of Human Artifact Characteristics

One of the most controversial and difficult aspects of recognizing very early human occupations in the Western Hemisphere deals with our ability to identify chipped stone artifacts made by humans as opposed to other non-human agents.  Homogenous, brittle, fine-grained, or microcrystalline rock is a favorite raw material for stone tool makers and users in all times and places.  However, these qualities also make such rocks candidates for natural fracture from taphonomic processes such as wind and water erosion, animal trampling, and frost fracturing.  Sophisticated formalized tools are easily recognized.  Less formalized tools and debitage become points of contention during investigations into early human occupations.  What are the qualities found on lithic debitage and tools that allow investigators to determine if a specimen has been modified by intentional human shaping?  This study reviews a series of experiments aimed at identification of macroscopic traits common to human-made lithic artifacts.  Results show that commonly surmised traits such as conchoidal fracture initiation on objective pieces and detached pieces can be the products of natural processes.  However, there are a suit of traits such as striking platform configuration, pattern of flake removal scars on dorsal surfaces, distribution and size of flake removals from nodules that reveal uniquely human processes.  This study shows that recognition of such traits can be assessed on both individual specimens and on populations of specimens to discriminate between non-human taphonomic processes and human artifact production processes.

Charlotte Beck and George T. Jones

Charlotte and Tom, who married in graduate school, earned their Ph.D. degrees from the University of Washington in 1984.  They began teaching at Hamilton College in 1985 and have been professors of anthropology there since 1998.

Following their dissertation research as members of Steens Mountain Prehistory project in the northern Great Basin, they began long-term field studies in eastern Nevada in 1986.  Working first in Butte Valley and subsequently in a number of valleys across the central and eastern Great Basin, they have focused attention on the land use practices of the terminal Pleistocene/early Holocene occupants.  Amassing a large data set of artifacts from surface sites, they initiated an obsidian source and hydration project that eventually culminated in the reconstruction of mobility patterns over large portions of the Great Basin. From 1992 through 1997 they excavated at the Sunshine Locality in Long Valley, eastern Nevada.

Charlotte and Tom have published, together, singly, or with other researchers, over 50 articles in refereed journals and edited volumes on various topics concerning the earliest Great Basin peoples but also on method and theory in archaeology. In addition, Tom co-edited Archaeological Diversity (Oxford University Press) in 1989. Charlotte edited two volumes, Dating in Exposed and Surface Contexts (University of New Mexico Press) in 1984 and Models for the Millennium: Great Basin Anthropology Today (University of Utah Press) in 1999.  In 2009, their monograph, The Archaeology of the Eastern Nevada Paleoarchaic, Part I:  The Sunshine Locality was published in the University of Utah Anthropological Papers. In it they detail the archaeological and paleoenvironmental records of this important Paleoarchaic site.  They are currently working on part 2.

Relevant Publications:

Beck, C., and G. T. Jones (2012)  The Clovis-Last Hypothesis:  Investigating early Lithic Technology in the Intermountain West.  In Meetings at the Margins:  Prehistoric Cultural Interactions in the Intermountain West, edited by David Rhode.  University of Utah, in press.

Beck, C., and G. T. Jones (2010)  Clovis and Western Stemmed:  Population Migration and the Meeting of Two Technologies in the Intermountain West.  American Antiquity 75:81-116.

Jones, G. T., and C. Beck (2003)  Lithic source Use and Paleoarchaic Foraging Territories in the Great Basin.  American Antiquity 68:5-38.

The Increasing Complexity of the Colonization Process: A View from the North American West

The Clovis First hypothesis has been slowly crumbling since reports of Monte Verde began to appear more than two decades ago, but the pace has quickened  in recent years due to mounting evidence against it, particularly that from Paisley Caves.  Yet archaeologists have not fashioned an equally simple and compelling alternative to Clovis First; instead, the evidence suggests a more complex process of colonization and population spread.  In 2010 we argued for evidence of at least two points of entry into North America by colonizing populations, one in the southeast/southern Texas represented by Clovis and the other in the Pacific Northwest.  We suggested that these latter colonists may have used corridors like the Columbia River and its tributaries to enter the interior basins of the Intermountain West.  As Alan Bryan argued years ago, we believe these western groups carried a distinctive stone tool technology from that of Clovis.  In this paper we review our original arguments, evaluating our thesis in light of more recent data.  In addition we tackle the question of the affinities between Clovis and Western Stemmed biface technology.  Drawing on Western Stemmed biface assemblages numbering more than 1000 items, we compare production techniques with those of Clovis to assess if the two could represent descendent and predecessor as implied by the Clovis First hypothesis.

Eric Boëda

My research focuses on the explanation of mechanisms of change in lithic technological systems throughout the entire Plio-Pleistocene. To achieve this aim, I work in three regions. The Near East, where I direct the excavation of the site of Umm el Tlel (Syria), has yielded 150 archaeological levels from the Acheulean to the PPNB. Results show that most changes are essentially local in nature. East and Southeast Asia demonstrate, through the reanalysis of Pleistocene artifacts, an originality that had been overlooked since it did not reflect cultures known in the circum-Mediterranean regions. Very generally, we can discuss a world in which techniques of the West were never established. These data are in opposition to anthropological migration models. South America, including the Piaui region in particular, has yielded several sites of Upper Pleistocene age as a result of new excavations. Artifact analysis demonstrates that these are classical cobble industries, comparable to those throughout Eastern Asia. By choosing such different terrains, our objective is to demonstrate that technological data contradicts most of the models proposed on the basis of physical or genetic anthropological data. We are thus confronted with much more complex histories closer to the realities that we know.

Relevant Publications:

Le site de Longgupo. Chongqing-Chine. Under the scientific direction of E. Boëda and H. Ya-Mei. L’Anthropologie.Vol. 115, n°1, Jan-Mar 2011. 196 p.

Boëda E., Bonilauri S., Connan J., Jarvie D., Mercier N., Tobey M., Valladas H., Al-Sakhel H. (2009)New evidence for significant use of bitumen in Middle Palaeolithic technical systems at Umm el Tlel around 70,000 BP. Paléorient, vol.34.2, p. 67-83.

Paléo-technologie ou anthropologie des Techniques? Gapenne O. & Gaussier P. (dir.), Suppléance perceptive et interface.n° spécial Arobase. Université de Rouen et Laboratoire Psy.Co. 2005, pp. 46-64. Online publication at www.univ-rouen.fr/arobase.

The Pleistocene Human Occupation of Piaui: An Unacceptable Reality? And Nevertheless they are Old!

The presence of humans in South America, prior to 12,000 BP, is an ongoing subject of controversy. Independently of the arguments of each researcher, we note at least two analytical biases. For the first, depending on whether the material recovered is on the "good" or "bad" side of the "barrier", scientific demonstrations do not have the same order of rigor.
The second concerns the way in which the archaeological material is studied, limiting that which is presented to a very limited category of artifacts: points.

Our more demanding approach combines technological, taphonomic and experimental approaches. We have included the study of the site of Boqueiro de Pedra Furada and two new sites in karstic and sandstone position in the Piaui, for which the artifacts come from archaeological assemblages dating to more than 17,000 BP.

Taking into account the totality of these artifacts demonstrates technological facies that rely on the use of cobble, which we can identify as entirely classical in comparison with those commonly found in all of the countries in Eastern Asia. Alongside this research, a comparative taphonomic analysis has been systematically carried out, which further confirms the presence of technological facies that are not natural.
Thus, the increase in discoveries in various geological contexts confirms the existence of human occupations during the Upper Pleistocene in this region of the world.

Bruce Bradley

Department of Archaeology
University of Exeter
Exeter, Devon
UK

Bruce first encountered archaeology in the Arizona desert and earned a BA in Anthropology from the University of Arizona in 1970.  This is where he first met and flintknapped with Mike.  Following a few years of ‘have trowel will travel’, Bruce finished a PhD at the University of Cambridge focused on Middle Paleolithic technology.  After a period of hiring out in contract archaeology he co-founded an archaeological consulting company.  In 1983 Bruce began a 14 year stint at the Crow Canyon Archaeological Center after which he again did private consulting.  He joined the Archaeology Department at the University of Exeter in 2003 and is now Associate Professor of Experimental Archaeology.

During Bruce’s 47 years of doing archaeology he has been fortunate to be involved in some of the seminal 20th century Paleolithic projects in Arizona, Wyoming, Colorado, Texas, France, Spain and Russia.  His research also includes Ancient Pueblos in Colorado and horse domestication in Kazakhstan.  He has enjoyed the mentorship of such notable archaeologists as Emil Haury, François Bordes, Charles McBurney, C. Garth Sampson and George Frison. Bruce brings a special perspective of a practicing ‘primitive technologist’, master flintknapper and experimental archaeologist to his research.  These approaches have recently been applied to both Clovis and Solutrean technologies.  He is currently co-director of the Gault Project in Texas, is working on Paleoamerican materials with colleagues in Argentina, Uruguay and Brazil and is concluding a multi-year project of flintknapping learning and its relationship to the development of the hominid brain.

Mike Collins studied Solutrean technology under François Bordes, received his PhD from the University of Arizona and is co-director of the Gault Project with Bruce.

Bruce’s publications are numerous and wide ranging and reflect all of his research interests.  He enjoys collaboration with colleagues as shown in three recent relevant publications.

Relevant Publications:

Stanford, D. and B. Bradley (2012) Across Atlantic Ice: The origin of America’s Clovis Culture.  University of California Press, Berkeley.

Bradley, B., Collins, M., Hemmings, CA. (2010) Clovis Technology.  International Monographs in Prehistory No. 17.  Ann Arbor, MI.

Aubry, T, Bradley, B., Almeida, M, Walter, B, Neves, M, Pelegrin, J, Lenoir, M, Tiffagom, M. 2008.            Solutrean laurel leaf production at Maitreuax: an experimental approach guided by techno-economic analysis. World Archaeology 40(1):48-66, Routledge.

Clovis Technology: A Beautiful Complexity

Clovis technology, as known in the durable record consists of several distinctive flaked stone reduction strategies as well as the manufacture of a range of bone, ivory and antler tools.  Stone was flaked to produce large flakes from bifacial cores, blades from two core reduction sequences and bifaces for varying purposes including the distinctive points known as Clovis.  All of these were complex technologies, which demanded expert knowledge and significant skill to achieve, even at a basic level.  Special characteristics such as the extraordinary selection of exotic raw materials, production of oversized bifaces for caching, controlled overshot biface flaking and flat-backed blade core maintenance are some of the features that indicate a ‘deep’ technology that must have significant and distinguishable antecedents in the archaeological record.  These specific technologies span multiple ecological zones from the sub arctic to the tropics, indicating an astonishing consistency and a system imposed on environmental factors rather than controlled by them; they truly represent a beautiful complexity.

Michael B. Collins

Michael B. Collins, PhD, Research Professor of Anthropology at Texas State University, is a prehistorian specializing in the study of the earliest cultures in the Western Hemisphere from the perspective of geoarchaeology, stone tool technology, and diverse archaeological approaches.  His current research stance has developed over the more than 50 years of his archaeological career.

Dennis J. Stanford is Curator of Archaeology and Director of the Paleo-Indian Program at the Smithsonian?s National Museum of Natural History. He has long specialized in investigating the earliest cultural evidence in the New World toward better understanding the peopling of the Americas. (Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C.)

Darrin L. Lowery has a doctorate in geology and graduate degrees in archaeology and anthropology. He is a geoarchaeological research associate at the Smithsonian Institution and his research is focused in eastern North America, specifically within the coastal plain physiographic zone. (Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C.)

Relevant Publications:

Stanford, Dennis J. and Bruce A. Bradley (2012)  Across Atlantic Ice; the origin of America’s Clovis Culture.  Berkeley CA, The University of California Press.

Bradley, Bruce A., Michael B. Collins, and C. Andrew Hemmings (2010) Clovis Technology. Ann Arbor MI, International Monographs in Prehistory

Collins, Michael B. (1999) Clovis Blade Technology. Austin, TX, University of Texas Press

North America Before Clovis: Variance in Temporal/Spatial Cultural Patterns, 24,000 to 13,000 BP.

A wide range of contrasting cultural patterns occur across North America during various portions of the time period between ~24,000 and 13,000 BP.  Each of these is represented by multiple sites and tends to occur in distinctive environmental settings.  The extent and variance of this rich archaeological fabric indicates a complex process of peopling the Western Hemisphere, multiple cultural origins, and a long period of human presence prior to the advent of the distinctive Clovis manifestation.

Loren G. Davis

Loren G. Davis received his Ph.D. in 2001 from the University of Alberta where he studied archaeology and Quaternary geology.  Davis is an Associate Professor of Anthropology at Oregon State University where he directs the Keystone Archaeological Research Fund.  Davis directs research to seek, study, and understand the initial Pleistocene prehistory of western North America at sites in Oregon, Idaho, Baja California and Baja California Sur.  Davis’s publications address issues of lithic technology, geoarchaeology, paleolandscape reconstruction, paleoceanographic reconstructions, human-environmental interactions, and the application of instrumental methods in archaeology.  Davis currently directs archaeological excavations to investigate Western Stemmed Tradition occupations at the Cooper’s Ferry site of western Idaho.  Davis has also conducted geoarchaeological research as part of archaeological excavations at Oregon’s Paisley Five Mile Rockshelter. In 2010, Davis served as co-PI on a NOAA funded project to model paleolandscapes in Baja California Sur’s Sea of Cortez region in order to locate submerged prehistoric sites.  In 2011, Davis started work to build the first comprehensive model of Pleistocene paleolandscapes and potential submerged site locations in the area offshore of Oregon, Washington and California.

Quentin Mackie is an associate professor of anthropology at the University of Victoria, specializing in the archaeology of the Northwest Coast.  His thematic interests include settlement archaeology, lithic analysis, environmental archaeology, and the first peopling of the Northwest Coast.

Daryl W. Fedje is a staff archaeologist with Parks Canada. He completed his MA in archaeology at the University of Calgary in 1993 and his research interests include lithic analysis, paleoecology, and the peopling of the Northwest Coast.

Duncan Mclaren is an adjunct professor at the University of Victoria’s Department of Anthropology.  His research interests include lithic analysis, environmental archaeology, and the peopling of the Northwest Coast.

Amy E. Gusick is a doctoral candidate in anthropology at the University of California, Santa Barbara.  She pursues her research interests in early maritime Pacific Rim hunter-gatherers through fieldwork projects on California’s Santa Cruz Island, California and on submerged landscapes in Baja California Sur’s Sea of Cortez.

Relevant Publications:

Davis, Loren G. (2011) The Paleocoastal Concept Reconsidered.  In Trekking the Shore: Changing Coastlines and the Antiquity of Coastal Settlement, edited by N. Bicho, J. Haws and L.G. Davis, pp. 3-26.  Springer Publishing Company, New York.

Fedje, Daryl, Quentin Mackie, Nicole Smith, and Duncan Mclaren (2011) Function, Visibility, and Interpretation of Archaeological Assemblages at the Pleistocene/Holocene Transition in Haida Gwaii.  In From the Yenisei to the Yukon: Interpreting Lithic Assemblage Variability in Late Pleistocene/Early Holocene Beringia, edited by T. Goebel and I. Buvit, pp. 323-344.  Texas A & M Press, College Station.

Gusick, Amy E. and Michael K. Faught (2011) Prehistoric Underwater Archaeology: A Nascent Subdiscipline Critical to Understanding Early Coastal Occupations and Migration Routes. In Trekking the Shore: Changing Coastlines and the Antiquity of Coastal Settlement, edited by N. Bicho, J. Haws and L.G. Davis, pp. 27-50. Springer, New York.

Searching for Pleistocene-Aged Submerged Archaeological Sites Along Western North America?s Pacific Coast: Current Research and Future Needs

Enthusiasm for considering a coastal route of human entry into the Americas during the late Pleistocene has grown during the past few decades, and this has only accelerated by recent reports on early Bison and Mastodon kill/butchery sites in coastal Washington State.  Nonetheless, relatively little sustained effort has been directed toward finding and exploring the potential archaeological content of extant Pleistocene-aged terrestrial landscape deposits in submerged contexts.  Given the logistical challenges involved in exploring submerged landscapes for early sites, the discovery of late Pleistocene sites on the Pacific outer continental shelf is expected to be technically difficult and expensive.  Therefore, we will outline the necessary, careful modeling of environment and cultural behavior within the context of dynamic late Pleistocene marine environments.  By reviewing the geoarchaeological context of early submerged and intertidal sites, and recent efforts to reconstruct coastal paleolandscapes and paleoecology along western North America’s Pacific coast, we offer a status report on current knowledge and insights into productive directions for future research.  

Adriana Schmidt Dias

Adriana Schmidt Dias is professor of archaeology and directs the Traditional Technologies Studies Lab at Rio Grande do Sul Federal University, Brazil. She received her PhD in archaeology from São Paulo University in 2003 and directed research programs about hunter gatherer initial occupations of Southern Brazil and its relation with paleoenvironmental transformations throughout the Holocene. 

Lucas Bueno is professor of archaeology at Santa Catarina Federal University, Brazil. He received his PhD in archaeology from São Paulo University in 2005 and directed research programs on several hunter-gatherer sites on Central Brazil and Amazon. Dias and Bueno authored and co-authored several journal articles and book chapters dealing with lithic technology, territoriality and cultural variability and hunter-gatherer colonization strategies of South America Eastern Lowlands. Since 2011 they are also co-editors with Edith Pereira of Journal of Brazilian Archaeology Society.

Relevant Publications:

Dias, A. S. (2011) Hunter-gatherer Occupation of South Brazilian Atlantic Forest: Paleoenvironment and Archaeology. Quaternary International, v. 256, (in press).

Dias, A. S. Les Chasseurs-cueilleurs de la Forêt Atlantique du Brésil Méridional. In: Denis Vialou. (Org.). Peuplements et Préhistoire en Amériques. Paris, Éditions du Comité des Travaux Historiques et Scientifiques - CTHS, p. 357-370.

Dias, A. S. (2004) Diversificar para Poblar: El Contexto Arqueológico Brasileño en la Transición Pleistoceno-Holoceno. Complutum (Madrid), v. 15, p. 249-263.

The First Colonization of South America Eastern Lowlands: Brazilian Archaeological Contributions to Settlement of America Models

Between 12,000 and 8,000 yrs BP, South America Eastern Lowlands was occupied by a stable and diversified hunter-gatherers population. The predominance of generalist subsistence strategies and the lithic industries regional variability show the limits of classic models for the settlement of America to explain the processes of early colonization of this region. In chronological terms, such diversity involves adaptive strategies referring to initial occupations earlier than those assumed by traditional models. Radiocarbon dating that support this hypothesis were obtained for several archaeological sites in Brazil, but the validity of these data has been questioned, as they concern to isolated contexts with discrete characteristics.
Also, by analyzing the geographical distribution of the Brazilian archaeological data for Pleistocene-Holocene transition it can be suggest migration flows with differentiated routes, speeds and shift behaviors. Brazilian archeological and paleoenvironmental research suggests that the process of initial colonization of the South American Lowlands entailed multiple strategies, including the valleys of large rivers as inland routes. This dynamic of space usage can promote a rapid displacement over long distances, which, in some cases, explains the existence of almost contemporary sets of sites with similar lithic industries and cultural patterns separate by great distances.

Tom D. Dillehay

Distinguished Professor in the Department of Anthropology and Professor Extraordinaire and Honorary Doctorate at the Universidad Austral de Chile. Professor Dillehay has carried out numerous archaeological and anthropological projects in Peru, Chile, Argentina and other South American countries and in the United States. His main interests are migration, the long-term transformative processes leading to political and economic change, and the interdisciplinary and historical methodologies designed to study those processes. He has been a Visiting Professor at several universities around the world, including the Universidad de Chile, Universidad Nacional Mayor de San Marcos, Lima, Universidade de Sao Paulo, Universidad Nacional Autonoma de Mexico, Cambridge University, University of Tokyo, University of Chicago, among others. Professor Dillehay has published fifteen books and more than two hundred refereed journal articles and books. He currently co-directs with the University of Chicago an interdisciplinary project focused on long-term human and environmental interaction on the north coast of Peru. He has began an excavation project at Huaca Prieta, Peru. He directs another project sponsored by the Guggenheim Foundation and the National Science Foundation on the political identity of the Araucanians in Chile and Argentina. Professor Dillehay has received numerous international and national awards for his research, books and teaching. Professor Dillehay is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.

Relevant Publications:

Dillehay, Tom D. (2009) Probing deeper into the first American Studies. PNAS 106(4):971-978.

Rothhammer, F. and T. D. Dillehay (2009) The late pleistocene colonization of South America: An interdisciplinary perspective. Annals of Human Genetics 73(5):540-549.

Dillehay, T. D., C. Ramírez, M. Pino, M. B. Collins, J. Rossen and J. D. Pino-Navarro (2008) Monte Verde: Seaweed, food, medicine, and the peopling of South America. Science 320(5877):784-786.

Late Pleistocene Economic and Cultural Diversity in North Peru

This paper considers the earliest evidence for people along the coast and on the nearby western Andean slopes of northern Peru from 14000-10000 calibrated years ago.  Synthesized and related here are both new and published data generated by three decades of archaeological and paleoecological interdisciplinary research at more than 380 sites that represent the early Huaca Prieta, Fishtail, Paijan and unifacial cultures. The end of this time span was characterized by the appearance of domesticated plants, incipient social differentiation, a semi-sedentary to sedentary lifeway, and population aggregation, all of which formed a palimpsest of ever changing social and economic conditions across many different environments of the study area and set the stage for more complex developments.

Jon M. Erlandson

Jon Erlandson is an archaeologist, professor of anthropology, and executive director of the Museum of Natural and Cultural History at the University of Oregon (UO). He earned his PhD from the University of California at Santa Barbara (UCSB) in 1988, teaching briefly at UCSB and the University of Alaska at Fairbanks before joining the UO faculty. Erlandson’s research interests revolve around the deep history of maritime adaptations and coastal migrations, the evolution of human technologies, historical ecology and human impacts in ancient coastal ecosystems, and the peopling of the Americas. He has over 30 years of field experience along the Pacific Coast of North America and spent seven seasons excavating Viking Age sites in Iceland. Erlandson has published 16 books or edited volumes, over 250 journal articles or book chapters, and 13 issues of the Journal of Island and Coastal Archaeology, for which he serves as founding co-editor.

Relevant Publications:

Erlandson, Jon M. (2002) Anatomically modern humans, maritime adaptations, and the peopling of the New World. In The First Americans: The Pleistocene Colonization of the New World, edited by N. Jablonski, pp. 59-92. Memoirs of the California Academy of Sciences. San Francisco.

Erlandson, J.M., M Graham, B Bourque, D Corbett, J Estes, & R Steneck (2007) The Kelp Highway hypothesis: marine ecology, the coastal migration theory, and the peopling of the Americas. Journal of Island and Coastal Archaeology 2:161-174.

After Clovis-First Collapsed: Reimagining the Peopling of the Americas

From the ruins of the Clovis-First paradigm, which dominated 20th century American archaeology, archaeologists have proposed a variety of alternative models for the peopling of the Americas. Coastal and maritime perspectives now play a substantially more important role in such colonization models, buttressed by some recent archaeological, genetic, and paleoecological data. With increasingly robust genetic data suggesting that the Americas were first colonized by humans migrating out of northeast Asia and Beringia between ~20,000 and 14,000 years ago, archaeologists must construct viable models from a very sparse pre-Clovis archaeological record. I believe the very scarcity of pre-Clovis sites is significant—suggesting that we may be missing an important part of the record. Small and highly mobile populations may explain the scarcity of early sites in some regions, but rising postglacial sea levels and the inundation of vast areas of the continental shelves are also a major problem. From these sparse records, we must reevaluate Paleoindian settlement chronologies using principles of chronological hygiene, reexamine key sites long dismissed by Clovis-First proponents, and reimagine the peopling of the New World.

Nora Flegenheimer

Nora studied at La Plata National University (UNLP), Argentina, where she specialized in lithic analysis. Her first assignment was to study the early lithics from the Patagonian Los Toldos collection, published with Cardich in 1978. Since then she has worked excavating sites related to the early peopling in the Pampas and building the lithic resource base. Currently she holds a position as CONICET Researcher and works at the Archaeology and Anthropology Area of Necochea, a small town near the early Pampas sites, where she has developed an interest in public archaeology.

She has excavated at localities Cerro La China, Cerro El Sombrero and El Guanaco with occupations dated to the Pleistocene / Holocene transition and Early Holocene. Her work with Cristina Bayón on tool stone availability led them to propose that rock color was an important trait in raw material selection and had a symbolic value for early peoples in the region. Also, in collaboration with colleagues from Uruguay, based on long distance artifact transport they proposed the existence b of an early social network. Her current projects include work with her Phd students based on material culture and landscape archaeology at early sites and quarry areas.

Laura Miotti is Researcher at CONICET. She obtained her Phd from La Plata University where she teaches as  Professor of “Arqueología Americana 1”. Her research interests include: zooarchaeology, rock art in Patagonia early sites (Piedra Museo, Los Toldos, La Primavera localities), from a landscape archaeology perspective.

Natalia Mazzia recently obtained her Phd at La Plata University, 2011 with a thesis on “Hunter gatherers´ places and landscapes in the pampas of Buenos Aires: changes and continuities during the final Pleistocene- Holocene”. She holds a postdoctoral scholarship at CONICET.

Relevant Publications:

Flegenheimer N., Bayón C. and Pupio A. (2006) Llegar a un Nuevo Mundo. La arqueología de los primeros pobladores del actual territorio argentino. Ed. Museo y Archivo Histórico, Inst. Cultural. Mun. de Bahía Blanca and Area Arqueología y Antropología. Dir. Gral. de Cultura y Educación. Mun. De Necochea, pp.211.

Flegenheimer N., C. Bayón, M. Valente, J. Baeza y J. Femeninas (2003) Long Distance Tool Stone Transport in the Argentine Pampas. Quaternary International, The Journal of the INQUA, guest editors L. Miotti y M. Salemme, 109-110 : 49-64.

Miotti L. (2003) Patagonia: a paradox for building images of the first Americans during the Pleistocene/Holocene Transition. Quaternary International, The Journal of the INQUA, guest editors L. Miotti y M. Salemme, 109-110 : 1147-173.

Rethinking Early Objects and Landscapes in the Southern Cone

The Southern Cone exhibits a variety of early contexts with unique features, including isolated sites, such as Monte Verde, or groups of related sites, as the Puna contexts. Yet, the single feature with most widespread geographical distribution is the Fishtail or Fell 1 projectile point. It is found in a variety of contexts and environments throughout South America; specifically in the Southern Cone, in Uruguay, Chile and Argentina. Its typical design and technical traits, such as fluting, are shared in different regions and have been used in proposals about exchange, social identity and migration routes.  This presentation will update information and focus on two localities with concentrations of Fishtail points, one in the pampas and the other in Patagonia.
Localities Cerro El Sombrero and Los Dos Amigos exhibit similar features regarding objects and landscapes. Both hilltops were chosen to discard broken Fishtail points as well as other artifacts, including discoidal stones and small spheres. Based on the assumption that past selections of objects and landscape, were socially significant, we propose that people living in both regions in the Southern Cone during the Pleistocene/Holocene transition were sharing meanings and had more in common than technical knowledge and designs.

Ted Goebel

Ted Goebel earned his Ph.D. degree from University of Alaska, Fairbanks in 1993. Since then, he has been a professor at Southern Oregon University, University of Nevada Las Vegas, University of Nevada Reno, and most recently at Texas A&M University, where he holds the Professorship in First Americans Studies and is Associate Director of the Center for the Study of the First Americans. Ted has investigated Paleolithic and Paleoindian archaeological sites in south Siberia, Kamchatka, Alaska, and western USA. Since earning his Ph.D. he has directed six field archaeological projects funded by the U.S. National Science Foundation, investigating the emergence of the Upper Paleolithic in Siberia, geoarchaeology of the Ushki site in Kamchatka, the Paleoindian-Archaic transition at Bonneville Estates Rockshelter, Nevada, and fluted points in Alaska, focusing on the Serpentine Hot Springs site in Bering Land Bridge National Preserve. Ted’s publications include more than 50 articles in refereed journals or edited volumes. In 2011, with Ian Buvit, he edited the book From the Yenisei to the Yukon: Interpreting Lithic Assemblage Variability in Late Pleistocene/Early Holocene Beringia (published by Texas A&M University Press). He also served as editor of the journal Current Research in the Pleistocene in 2004-2012.

Jeff Rasic is an archaeologist with the National Park Service in Alaska and Curator of Archaeology at the University of Alaska Museum. He earned his Ph.D. degree from Washington State University, and is an expert in the early bifacial technologies of the Brooks Range, northwest Alaska.

Heather Smith is currently a Ph.D. candidate at Texas A&M University, and since 2011 she has been supervising the excavation of the Serpentine Hot Springs site in northwest Alaska. Her dissertation examines the fluted-point technologies of Alaska and their relationships with temperate North American Paleoindian complexes.

Relevant Publications:

Goebel, T., and I. Buvit (editors) (2011) From the Yenisei to the Yukon: Interpreting Lithic Assemblage Variability in Late Pleistocene/Early Holocene Beringia. Texas A&M University Press, College Station.

Goebel, T., M. R. Waters, and D. H. O’Rourke (2008) The late Pleistocene dispersal of modern humans in the Americas. Science 319:1497-1502.

Goebel, T. (2004) The search for a Clovis progenitor in Siberia. In: Madsen, D. (ed.), Entering America: Northeast Asia and Beringia before the Last Glacial Maximum. University of Utah Press, Salt Lake City, pp.311-358.

Biface Traditions in Alaska and Their Role in the Peopling of the Americas

Archaeologists have long looked to Alaska for evidence of the origins of the first Americans, but still no clear Clovis ancestor has been uncovered there. In this presentation we review the bifacial-rich traditions of north and northwest Alaska, focusing on new results from two fluted-point sites—Serpentine Hot Springs and Raven Bluff, and reviewing earlier work conducted at the Mesa, Sluiceway-Tuluaq, and Nogahabara sites, all thought to potentially date to the terminal Pleistocene. In terms of technology, subsistence, and settlement, these complexes seemingly represent “Paleoindians” in the Arctic; however, none of them (with the possible exception of Sluiceway-Tuluaq) are as old as or older than Clovis. More likely they are the product of a northward spread of Paleoindian people—or Paleoindian technology—into the Arctic at the very end of the Pleistocene, 13,000-12,000 calendar years ago, simultaneous to the dispersal of temperate North American bison into the north.

Arturo H. Gonzalez Gonzalez

Arturo is Biologist from the Universidad Autónoma Metropolitana-Iztapalapa (UAM-I) Mexico D.F. and Archeologist from the Escuela Nacional de Antropología e Historia (ENAH) México D.F. He has a master degree in Promotion and Cultural development from the Universidad Autónoma  de Coahuila (U.A.C.) Saltillo, Coahuila, México. He is currently working on his Ph D in the Heidelberg University in Germany. Arturo has other studies and training in subacuatic archeology, environmental policy and leadership in museums.

Arturo has published 3 books: “Fósiles de México”, “El agua en el desierto”, y “Signos para la memoria”. He also has 39 scientific publications, , 8 scientific documentaries with  Discovery channel, Spiegel Mirror and Nat Geo. He has been on 19 scientific conference in América y Europe.

His scientific work focus in understanding the extinction of megafauna at the end of the Pleistocene (Ice Age) when the first Americans settled. He is charge of the project about Human Prehistory in the Yucatan península. The results of his investigations and projects made him deserve the “Rolex Award for Enterprice 2008”

Since 2002 he is the Director of the Museo del Desierto (Desert Museum) in Saltillo, Coahuila, Mexico. This institution had earned recognition and awards in the last 10 years.

Wolfgang Stinnesbeck Phd.- Geologist and Paleontologist with more than 25 years of field experience and scientific investigations in México.

Alejandro Terrazas Mata Phd.- Archaeologyst from Mexico´s National Archaeology and History School and physical anthropologist from Mexico´s National Autonomus University.  

M. Benavente -Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México (UNAM).

J. Avilés -Instituto para La Prehistoria de America.

C. Rojas -Instituto Nacional de Antropología e Historia (INAH).

J.M. Padilla -Museo del Desierto, Saltillo Coahuila.

E. Acevez-Instituto para la Prehistoria de America

Relevant Publications:

Gonzalez Arturo H., Martin Lockley, Carmen Rojas Sandoval, Jose Lopez Espinoza and Silvia Gonzalez (2007) Notes on re-discovery of a “Lost” Hominid footprint site from the cuatrocienegas basin (Coahuila), Mexico Lucas, Spielmann and Lockley, Eds., 2007,CenozoicVertebrate Traces and Traces. New Mexico Museum of Natural History and Science Bulletin 42.

González, González Arturo H. (editor) 2002 “Fósiles de México. Coahuila, una ventana a través del tiempo” Gobierno del estado de Coahuila. 227 páginas. ISBN 970-18-8298-9

González, A., Rojas, C., Terrazas, A., Benavente, M., Stinnesbeck, W., Avilés, J., et al. (2008) The Arrival of Humans on the Yucatán Peninsula: Evidence from submerged caves in the state of Quintana Roo, Mexico. Current Research in the Pleistocene, 25, 1-24

The First Humans in the Yucatan Peninsula Found in Drowned Caves: The Days of the Late Pleistocene-Early Holocene in a Changing Tropic

Prehistoric evidence from submerged caves and sinkholes (cenotes) on the Yucatan peninsula give evidence for the emerging view of a pre-Clovis human settlement in southern Mexico. During our ongoing palaeoanthropological research work we already documented five well preserved human skeletons as old as 13 and 9 ky from drowned caves in Quintana Roo. The finds are associated with fire sites and a diverse megafaunal assemblage of latest Pleistocene age, most of which is yet unreported. With the gathered information since 1999, we have a first view of this first Americans which left the evidence of funerary rituals that took place in special chambers located more than 500 meters from the entrance to inside the caves. We know this humans were well adapted to the environment and the life expectancy were long lived, in some cases more than 55 years.

At this moment we will highlight the enormous preservational potential of the cenote assemblage with special reference to human settlers and associated fauna, taphonomy and discussion of palaeobiogeographical links with adjacent coeval evidence from North- and South America. We will also calibrate prehistoric evidence chronostratigraphically, using 14C and U/Th dating on bones, teeth and charcoal, and we will analyse stalagmites, cave sediments, fossil water levels and palaeobotanical evidence (palynomorphs, charcoal) for palaeoecological signals. Isotopes and DNA will be analysed from fossil teeth and bones. With these multidisciplinary sets of data at hand we will be able to model the origin, mobility and environmental context of the first settlers on the Yucatan peninsula and reconstruct the regional palaeoenvironmental changes across the Pleistocene/Holocene boundary. Due to their evidently pre-Clovian age the human finds, which are assembled with mammals that were on the brim of extinction at the beginning of the Clovis age, our project will shed new light on the development of the human settlement throughout the Yucatan peninsula and their environment in Central America.

Albert C. Goodyear

Al Goodyear is an archaeologist with the S.C. Institute of Archaeology and Anthropology at the University of South Carolina.  He received his Ph.D. from Arizona State University in 1976 and the MA in 1971 from the University of Arkansas researching late Paleoindian Dalton culture.  He has been a Research Archaeologist with the Institute for 35 years pursuing Paleoamerican and early Holocene archaeology in the Southeastern U.S.  He has worked continuously in the Savannah River Valley for the past 25 years excavating preClovis and Clovis sites related to chert quarries in that region.  He is the founder of the Allendale Paleoamerican Expedition (www.allendale-expediton.net), an excavation program that utilizes public participants in field and lab studies, and the Southeastern Paleoamerican Survey (SEPAS).   SEPAS works in a partnership with SEPAS, Inc., a public support organization that facilitates field research in the Southeastern U.S. in search of the earliest human occupations of this area of North America.  Goodyear and his associates have worked annually at the Topper site since 1998 where extraordinary Clovis and preClovis deposits have been discovered.  His specialties include stone tool technology, Paleoamericans, the Pleistocene-Holocene transition, and geoarchaeology.

Douglas Sain is a Ph.D. student in archaeology at the University of Tennessee where his dissertation research concerns the preClovis lithic assemblage at the Topper site.  He received his MA from Eastern New Mexico, analyzing the Topper Clovis blades for his thesis.

Megan Hoak King is a Ph.D. student in archaeology at the University of Tennessee. She is interested in the peopling of the America’s, lithic technology, and evidence for women and children in the Paleoamerican record.  Her Masters thesis is entitled The Distribution of Paleoindian Debitage from the Pleistocene Terrace at the Topper Site: An Evaluation of a Possible Pre-Clovis Occupation.

Derek T. Anderson is an archaeologist at Mississippi State University, where he specializes in the Paleoindian period, with a focus on lithics and faunal analysis.  He is a supervisor at the Topper site excavation and is conducting a large-scale refitting and spatial analysis of Clovis and Early Archaic lithics from the site.

Dr. M. Scott Harris studies landscape evolution, stratigraphy, and sedimentology in the Department of Geology and Environmental Geosciences at the College of Charleston in South Carolina.  His focus is on the southeastern  U.S. Coastal Plain and Continental Shelf geomorphology and stratigraphy, preserved sea level records, and dynamics on archaeological sites.

Relevant Publications:

Goodyear, Albert C. (2005)  Evidence for Pre-Clovis sites in the eastern United States.  In Paleoamerican Origins: Beyond Clovis, edited by Robson Bonnichsen, Bradley T. Lepper, Dennis Stanford, and Michael R. Waters, pp. 103-112.  Center for the Study of the First Americans, College Station, Texas.

Goodyear, Albert C. (2009)  Update on Research at the Topper Site.  Legacy, Vol. 13, No. 1, pp. 8-13. South Carolina Institute of Archaeology and Anthropology, University of South Carolina.

Hoak, Megan King (2012)  The Distribution of Paleoindian Debitage from the Pleistocene Terrace at the Topper Site: An Evaluation of a Possible Pre-Clovis Occupation.  Masters thesis, University of Tennessee, Department of Anthropology.

Topper, An Early Paleoamerican Site in South Carolina

The Topper site (38AL23) is a multicomponent prehistoric site located on the Savannah River in western Allendale County, South Carolina.  A quality chert source is present at the eroding escarpment and in the present river bed.  Annual excavations for the past 15 years have revealed an extensive Clovis, Archaic and Woodland record spanning the past 13,000 years. The site has received intensive geological study resulting in a basic chrono-stratigraphic framework spanning at least the past 50,000 years.  Artifacts are found on the upland hillside, the escarpment chert quarry, and on the terrace bordering the river.  On the terrace, Clovis artifacts are found buried in colluvial sands OSL dated to about 13,000 years.  OSL dates on colluvium below Clovis date from 14 to 15,000 years.  Below the colluvium lies a Pleistocene age alluvial terrace with two distinct depositional units each bearing lithic artifacts.  Non Clovis type flaked stone artifacts are thought to be in both units created by bipolar reduction.  The assemblage consists of cores and choppers and flake tools formed by unifacial retouch and by bend breaking.  Some prismatic blades are also present.  Radiocarbon dates indicate the lower unit is at least 20,000 years old and as much as 50,000 years or more.  Presently, Topper is unique in the western hemisphere for its technology and dating.

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Kelly Graf

Kelly earned her Ph.D. degree from University of Nevada, Reno in 2008. Since then, she has been a research associate and research assistant professor at the Center for the Study of the First Americans, Department of Anthropology at Texas A&M University.

Kelly has investigated Paleolithic and Paleoindian archaeological sites in southern Siberia, Kamchatka, Alaska, and the western U.S. Since earning her Ph.D. she has directed two archaeological projects funded by the U.S. National Science Foundation, investigating the site formation, technological change at two terminal Pleistocene-aged, multicomponent archaeological sites in central Alaska, Dry Creek and Owl Ridge. In 2012-2013 she plans to continue field research in central Alaska and initiate new field research in Russia and the Great Basin.

Kelly?s publications include more than 20 articles in refereed journals and edited volumes. She also co-edited a volume on Paleoindian archaeology in the Great Basin, titled Paleoindian or Paleoarchaic? Great Basin Human Ecology at the Pleistocene-Holocene Transition and published by the University of Utah Press.

Relevant Publications:

Graf, K. E. (2010) Hunter-Gatherer Dispersals in the Mammoth-Steppe: Technological Provisioning and Land-Use in the Enisei River Valley, South-Central Siberia. Journal of Archaeological Science 37(1):210-233.

Graf, K. E. (2009) “The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly”: Evaluating the Radiocarbon Chronology of the Middle and Late Upper Paleolithic of the Enisei River Valley, South-central Siberia. Journal of Archaeological Science 36(3):694-707.

Graf, K. E. (2009) Human Colonization of the Siberian Mammoth-Steppe: A View from South-Central Siberia. In A Sourcebook of Paleolithic Transitions: Methods, Theories, and Interpretation, edited by M. Camps and P. R. Chauhan, pp, 479-502. Springer, New York .

Late Pleistocene Siberia: Setting the Stage for the Peopling of the Americas

Colonization of the Americas was a complex process. Both place of origin and timing of this event are hotly debated. Based on genetics, geography, language, and cultural similarities, most researchers consider Siberia the homeland of the first Americans with migration via the Bering Land Bridge. Others, however, argue earliest colonizers originated in Western Europe, arriving via a trans-oceanic voyage. Some hold that this early colonization event took place before the Last Glacial Maximum (LGM), while others contend it happened much more recently during the Late Glacial. In this paper, I address the peopling of the Americas from a Siberian perspective, using archaeological and ancient DNA data. The Siberian record indicates there were two pulses of modern humans into far northeast Asia during the late Pleistocene, one before and one after the LGM. The colonization of Siberia by modern humans was an episodic process, taking over 10,000 years, setting the stage for the initial peopling of the Americas.

Gary Haynes

Gary Haynes is Professor of Anthropology at the University of Nevada-Reno (see http://www.unr.edu/anthropology/people/faculty/gary-haynes), where he has been employed since 1985.  His doctorate in Anthropology was awarded in 1981 from the Catholic University of America in Washington, D.C.  His research specialties are the peopling of North America, taphonomic and actualistic studies of elephants in the wild, studies of carnivore modifications to large mammal skeletons, and stone-age prehistory and paleoenvironments in Zimbabwe, Africa.

He is the recipient of 21 research awards from nine granting agencies, including seven awards from the National Geographic Society, two from the Wenner-Gren Foundation, three from the Leakey Foundation, three from the US National Science Foundation, two from the International Research and Exchanges Board, and a Fulbright Senior Researcher award, among others.  He has also received two university awards for outstanding teaching and research.
He is the author of a book about the Clovis era and another book about proboscideans, and is the editor of a book about megafaunal extinctions in North America and co-editor of a special issue of the journal Deinsea.  He has written or co-authored over 100 articles, book reviews, and comments in scientific journals (many are available at http://www.unr.edu/anthropology/people/faculty/gary-haynes/publications).

Relevant Publications:

Haynes, G. (In Press) Extinctions in North America’s Late Glacial Landscapes.  Quaternary International, in press.

Haynes, G., editor (2009)  American Megafaunal Extinctions at the End of the Pleistocene.  Springer.

Haynes, G. (2002) The Early Settlement of North America: The Clovis Era.  Cambridge University Press.

Clovis-Era Subsistence: Continental Patterning and Regional Variability

This presentation is a summary of the evidence about Clovis-era subsistence and the different interpretations found in the literature.  Sites with adequate evidence about subsistence and diet are scattered in North America over thousands of kilometers, and cannot possibly be fair indications of a pan-continental Clovis-era “diet.”  Yet they do suggest large- prey preference.  At least 15 sites in the United States and northern Mexico contain fluted points associated with either mammoth, mastodont, or gomphothere bones.  Several more sites appear to contain proboscideans that may have been killed/scavenged/butchered by Clovis-era people, although they lack lithics.  The total number of individual proboscideans at these sites is around 60.  By comparison, nearly the same number of sites contain Clovis-era features or lithics and associated bones of six large mammal taxa (horse, camel, bison, caribou, bear, deer) , representing fewer individual animals (n=46).  Another 10 sites may contain utilized remains of 47 small mammals, mostly rodents and rabbits.  If Clovis-era people were preferentially selecting the largest animals to kill, and deliberately overlooking smaller species, their choices were rational.

Peter Hiscock

Peter has a Ph.D. from Queensland University and a D.Sc. from the Australian National University. He holds a Personal Chair at the Australian National University where he is Head of the School of Archaeology and Anthropology. He is a Fellow of the Australian Academy of the Humanities and a Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries. Peter has projects in desert, temperate and tropical Australia. This work reconstructs sequences of technological change and the articulation of technology to occupational strategies and environment. He also has a current project in South Africa examining the Middle Stone Age occupation of inland areas of the Western Cape. Previous projects included analyses of lithic technology in North Africa and in Western Europe. Peter spent two years analysing the Neanderthal assemblages from Combe Grenal in France. He has presented a synthesis of Australian prehistory and is now examining the implications of Australian evidence for stories of global human colonisation. Peter’s publications include more than 5 books and 140 articles in refereed journals or edited volumes. His books cover topics such as desert occupation, quarrying activities and lithic assemblage variation in Australia. His book Archaeology of Ancient Australia, published by Routledge, won the Mulvaney Book Award.

Relevant Publications:

Hiscock, P., C.Clarkson and A.Mackay 2011nBig debates over little tools: ongoing disputes over microliths on three continents. World Archaeology 43:653-664.

Hiscock, P. and C. Clarkson 2007 Retouched notches at Combe Grenal (France) and the Reduction Hypothesis. American Antiquity 72:176-190.

Hiscock, P. and S. O?Connor 2006 An Australian perspective on modern behaviour and artefact assemblages, Before Farming [online version] 2006/2 article 4.

Occupying New Lands: Global Migrations and Cultural Diversification with Particular Reference to Australia.

The colonization by Homo sapiens of previously empty lands provides archaeologists with unique information. The evidence from Australia is congruent with archaeological findings from other landscapes occupied by modern humans. Regional differentiation, experimentation and adaptation characterize these occupational events, showing that the global dispersion of Homo sapiens was not a singular process governed and guided by persistent traditions. Normative and static images of social and economic organization cannot explain the diversity of cultural evidence associated with the dispersion. This paper reviews the evidence for a dynamic process of social, economic and technological diversification associated with the spread of humans and their adaptation to new social and physical environments. Evidence can be read in a radically new way: it is not that ‘tradition’ is the explanation for global human migrations but rather that the dispersal of people created the foundations for subsequent cultural patterns.

Steven Holen

Steven Holen is Curator of Archaeology in the Department of Anthropology at the Denver Museum of Nature & Science.  He has more than 40 years experience in Great Plains archaeology working for state and federal agencies, universities, and public museums. Holen received his PhD from the University of Kansas and his dissertation research has focused on the Clovis manufacture and long‑distance movement of stone tools in the Central Great Plains.    More recently, he has excavated several pre-Clovis mammoth sites that date between 12,000 and 33,000 years old that contain evidence that humans were in the Great Plains much earlier than previously thought.  In conjunction with his archaeologist wife and scientific colleague, Kathleen, they have conducted experimental work breaking elephant bones in order to better understand mammoth bone breakage patterns.  They also conduct extensive museum collections research in the western United States looking for evidence of early humans.

Kathleen Holen is an associate with the Department of Anthropology at the Denver Museum of Nature & Science. She has a MA in archaeology from the University of Exeter in England and an MS from the University of Michigan.

Relevant Publications:

Holen, Steven R. (2007)  The age and Taphonomy of mammoths at Lovewell Reservoir, Jewell County, Kansas, USA.Quaternary International 169-170:51-63.

Holen, Steven R. (2006)  Taphonomy of Two Last Glacial Maximum Mammoth Sites in the Central Great Plains: A Preliminary Report. Quaternary International 142-143:30-44.

Holen, Steven R. and David W. May (2002)  The La Sena and Shaffert Mammoth Sites: History of Investigations.  In Medicine Creek: Seventy Years of Archaeological Investigations,edited by D. Roper, pp. 20-36.  University of Alabama Press, Tuscaloosa.

The Mammoth Steppe Hypothesis: The Mid Wisconsin (OIS 3) Peopling of the Americas

A mid-Wisconsin peopling of North America was first proposed by Muller-Beck in the mid-1960s and  was later supported by archaeological research in the Yukon that has provided evidence of  a mid Wisconsin percussion technology consisting of impacted and flaked bones.  We develop the “Mammoth Steppe Hypothesis” using Guthrie’s ecological model that identifies a Mammoth Steppe biome present from northern Europe across northern Siberia into Beringia. Recent research in northern Siberia at the Yana Site indicates humans were adapted to the Mammoth Steppe by 27,000 rcybp.  We test the Mammoth Steppe Hypothesis using data from several mammoth sites on the North American Great Plains dating between 11,700 and 33,000 rcybp and from experimental breakage of modern elephant limb bone.  Evidence supporting the presence of humans consists of impact notches and flaking on mammoth limb bone, the selective breakage of limb bones and the distribution of bone debitage.
Because Canada was completely covered with Last Glacial Maximum ice from ca. 22,000 to 11,500 rcypb, it is hypothesized that humans entered the Great Plains before the Last Glacial Maximum by a route south from Beringia and east of the Rocky Mountains sometime between 22,000 and 40,000 rcybp during Oxygen Isotope Stage 3.

Vance T. Holliday

Vance Holliday has a PhD in Geology from the University of Colorado (1982) following academic and field training in archaeology and soils. His career is largely devoted to reconstructing and interpreting the landscapes and environments in which Paleoindians lived. He was on the Geography faculty at the University of Wisconsin for 17 years, with research focused on the Southern High Plains and devoted to the late Quaternary paleoenvironments and landscape evolution, and the Paleoindian geoarchaeology of the region. This work included many of the classic Paleoindian sites in the region (Lubbock Lake, Clovis, Plainview, Midland, Miami, Lipscomb). Since joining the University of Arizona faculty he has directed the Argonaut Archaeological Research Fund (AARF), which is devoted to research on the Paleoindian geoarchaeology of the Southwest U.S. and northwestern Mexico. This work has included previously known sites and regions with Paleoindian records (the upper San Pedro Valley, Mockingbird Gap, and the Albuquerque Basin) and newly discovered localities, especially in northern Sonora and Chihuahua.  Other research has included Paleolithic sites along the Don River of Russia and the role of soil science in geoarchaeology.  Honors include the "Rip" Rapp Archaeological Geology Award of the Geological Society of America, and the Kirk Bryan Award of the G.S.A.

Shane Miller is a doctoral student at the University of Arizona, specializing in hunter-gatherer archaeology, ecological anthropology, and lithic technology. His areas of focus are the Paleoindian and Archaic periods in the Southeastern United States.

Relevant Publications:

Holliday, V.T. (1997) Paleoindian Geoarchaeology of the Southern High Plains. University of Texas Press.

Holliday, V.T. (2005) Ice Age Peopling of New Mexico. In New Mexico’s Ice Ages. Edited by S. G. Lucas, G. S. Morgan, and K. E. Zeigler. New Mexico Museum of Natural History and Science, Bulletin 28:263-276.

Holliday, V.T., and D.J. Meltzer (2010) The 12.9ka Impact Hypothesis and North American Paleoindians. Current Anthropology. 51:575-585.

Clovis Across the Continent: Distribution, Chronology, and Climate

Clovis is often described as a continent-wide phenomenon based primarily on the broad distribution of stylistically similar projectile points. Moreover, because several of the earliest  Clovis discoveries included proboscidean remains, many have argued that these early occupants of North America occupied a relatively narrow ecological niche. The time range for the Clovis artifact style is apparently narrow although the exact duration remains contentious. There also appears to be regional variation in Clovis point technology and “style,” though some would argue the differences are subtle. Significant geographical variation in the intensity of Clovis is apparent across the continent, with dense concentrations in the East and a patchier distribution on the West. This pattern may in part reflect modern recovery biases, but Clovis foragers clearly occupied a broad array of landscapes, although evidence for mountain or other high elevation occupations is rare. In the eastern U.S. Clovis artifacts are found in a wide array of lower elevation settings, but in the central and western U.S. and northern Mexico they are more thinly scattered. Relatively few concentrated or intense Clovis occupations are known west of the Mississippi. Clovis period (the post-LGM late Pleistocene) environments across the U.S. were likewise varied and also changing. The continent was in an overall warming trend and was increasingly seasonal, and runoff and water tables were generally higher than in the Holocene, but the direction and magnitude of changes varied significantly at a regional scale.

John W. Ives

From 1979-2007, Jack served with the Archaeological Survey of Alberta, the Royal Alberta Museum, and the Historic Resources Management Branch, with senior management responsibilities as Alberta’s Provincial Archaeologist for 21 years. Joining the Department of Anthropology, University of Alberta in 2007, he became Executive Director of the Institute of Prairie Archaeology (http://www.anthropology.ualberta.ca/en/Research/The-Institute-of-Prairie-Archaeology.aspx) in 2008.

Jack’s interests lie in Plains, Subarctic, Great Basin and Northeast Asian prehistory (Palaeolithic, Jin Dynasty), archaeological theory (kinship and economic organization, migration), and Public Archaeology. He has special interests in Dene prehistory (1990, A Theory of Northern Athapaskan Prehistory, Westview Press) With Canadian, American and British colleagues, he is currently investigating Utah’s Promontory Caves for traces of ancestral Dene presence, as Apachean cultural identities emerged. Jack has for several years furthered a western Canadian fluted points data base, initiated through the invaluable work of Eugene Gryba and Robert Dawe; he has ongoing interests in the Paleoindian kinship and social organization. Jack is the recipient of the University of Michigan’s Distinguished Dissertation Award and three Alberta Premier’s Awards.

Duane Froese is a field-based Quaternary scientist with research interests in Quaternary stratigraphy, geochronology, paleoenvironmental records and ice age mammals of eastern Beringia. He is Associate Professor and Canada Research Chair in Northern Environmental Change in the Department of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences at the University of Alberta.

Relevant Publications:

Ives, John W. (2006) 13,001 Years Ago—Human Beginnings in Alberta. In Alberta Formed—Alberta Transformed, edited by Michael Payne, Don Wetherell, and Cathy Cavanaugh, Volume 1, pp. 1-34.  Calgary/Edmonton:  University of Calgary/University of Alberta Presses.

Haile, J., Froese, D.G., MacPhee, R.D.E., Roberts, R.G., Arnold, L.J., Reyes, A.V., Rasmussen, M., Nielsen, R., Brook, B.W., Robinson, S., Demuro, M., Gilbert, M.T.P., Munch, K., Austin, J.J., Cooper, A., Barnes, I., Moller, P. and Willerslev, E. (2009) Ancient DNA reveals late survival of mammoth and horse in interior Alaska. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America 106 (December): 22352-22357.

Vectors, Vestiges and Valhallas?Rethinking the Corridor

The notion of an “ice free” or “deglaciating” corridor joining eastern Beringia with the eastern slopes of the Rockies became synonymous with New World colonization, especially that of “Clovis First.” This orthodoxy was often repeated, but seldom investigated: the corridor remains a thinly studied region. Geological evidence from the 1980s along with new models of biological productivity made the corridor yesterday’s news: Late Wisconsinan coalescence clearly took place, and many depicted postglacial landscapes as unremittingly bleak—devoid of a Clovis record or marginal, with late, atypical fluted points. In fact, fluted points occur at moderate densities in the corridor region, with other traces of early Paleoindian technological organization. Bison specimens—useful proxies for human habitability—show that ecesis took place centuries prior to Clovis throughout the corridor. Some postglacial landscapes may have been unusually attractive and some earlier dates for stratified sites in the Corridor need to be revisited. While these findings do not restore the Corridor as a prime route for initial settlement, they do mean the region has a critical bearing on “second order” processes with intriguing social overtones, particularly resumption of contact between eastern Beringian human populations and those south of the Laurentide ice.

Masami Izuho

Masami Izuho has been an Associate Professor in the Faculty of Social Sciences and Humanities at Tokyo Metropolitan University since 2009. Prior to this appointment, he spent 14 years as a researcher and cultural-heritage-management archaeologist in Sapporo, Hokkaido. Currently, he is a Ph.D. candidate of the Graduate School of Letters, Hokkaido University.
Masami specializes in the lithic technologies and geoarchaeology of the Upper Paleolithic in Northeast Asia. He has worked in Russia, Mongolia, and Japan and is currently conducting archaeological and geoarchaeological investigations at the Shimaki site in Hokkaido, which is yielding chipped stone technology dating to the Last Glacial Maximum. In addition, Masami has also worked on the problem of Quaternary megafaunal extinction in Japan, attempting to understanding human-environment interaction in insular northeast Asia.

Masami is author of more than 20 articles in refereed journals and edited volumes in English. He has also published more than 110 articles and excavation reports in Japanese and Russian.

In 2011, he received the Quaternary Research Award of the Japan Association for Quaternary Research.

Relevant Publications:

Izuho, M., Nakazawa, Y., Akai, F., Soda, T., and Oda, H. (2009) Geoarchaeological Investigations at the Upper Paleolithic Site of Kamihoronai-Moi, Hokkaido, Japan. Geoarchaeolog 24:492–517.

Izuho, M. and Hirose, W. (2010) A Review of Archaeological Obsidian Studies on Hokkaido Island (Japan). Crossing the Straits: Prehistoric Obsidian Source Exploitation in the Pacific Rim. British Archaeological Report International Series, 2152:9-25. Oxford, UK.

Ono, A. and Izuho, M., editors (In Press) Environmental Changes and Human Occupation in North and East Asia during OIS 3 and OIS 2. British Archaeological Report International Series, in press. Oxford, UK.

Human Technological and Behavioral Adaptation to Landscape Changes Before, During, and After the Last Glacial Maximum in Japan

Here I present technological and behavioral adaptations of hunter-gatherers to landscape changes before, during, and after the Last Glacial Maximum on the Japanese Islands, which formed two landmasses during the Upper Pleistocene: Paleo-Honshu Island and Paleo-Sakhalin-Hokkaido-Kurile Peninsula connected to the far eastern Asian continent.
Through assembling evidence of climate, landscape, flora, and fauna as well as cultural elements chronologically and geographically during periods which provide a high density of detailed data across Japan, I discuss the diversity of human technological and behavioral adaptations in the insular ecosystem between the cool-temperature and arctic zones.
Differences in adaptation at the local scale between the insular and continental parts of Asia shed light on the nature of modern human dispersals and formation of cultural diversity in Eurasia and Americas.

Dennis L. Jenkins

After serving as the Field Director for the Fort Irwin Archaeological Project in the Mojave Desert (1981-1985), Dennis moved to the University of Oregon where he earned his Ph.D. degree in 1991.  Hired  in 1987 by the Museum of Natural and Cultural History’s Research Division, he conducts ODOT archaeological projects and has investigated >100 archaeological sites in the Mojave, Northern Great Basin, and Columbia Plateau deserts.  He has also annually directed the UOs archaeological field school since 1989.

Dennis has investigated three late Pleistocene/early Holocene sites at Fort Irwin and three in the northern Great Basin.  His dissertation “Site Structure and Chronology of 37 Lake Mojave and Pinto Assemblages from Two Large Multicomponent Sites in the Central Mojave Desert, Southern California” reflects his deep interest in sorting out cultural assemblages of varying ages within sites.  His publications include “Oregon Archaeology” (Oregon State University Press, 2011), Early and Middle Holocene Archaeology of the Northern Great Basin (University of Oregon Anthropological Papers 62, 2004), and Archaeological Researches in the Northern Great Basin: Fort Rock Archaeology Since Cressman (University of Oregon Anthropological Papers 50, 1994) co-authored with C. M. Aikens and T. J. Connolly.

Relevant Publications:

Jenkins, D. L., L. G. Davis, T. W. Stafford, P. F. Campos, B. Hockett, G. T. Jones, L. S. Cummings, C. Yost, T. J. Connolly, R. M. Yohe II, S. C. Gibbons, M. Raghavan, M. Rasmussen, J. L. A. Paijmans, M. Hofreiter, M. T. P. Gilbert, E. Willerslev. In press. Early Western Stemmed Projectile Points and Coprolites from the Paisley Caves. Science.

Gilbert, M. T. P., D. L. Jenkins, A. Götherstrom, N. Naveran, J. J. Sanchez, M. Hofreiter, P. F. Thompson, J. Binladen, T. F.G. Higham, R. M. Yohe II, R. Parr, L. S. Cummings, E. Willerslev. 2008. DNA from Pre-Clovis Human Coprolites in Oregon, North America. Science 320:786-789.

Jenkins, D. L. “Distribution and Dating of Cultural and Paleontological Remains at the Paisley 5 Mile Point Caves (35LK3400) in the Northern Great Basin: an Early Assessment”. In Paleoindian or Paleoarchaic? Great Basin Human Ecology at the Pleistocene-Holocene Transition, edited by K. Graf and D. Schmitt, 57-81. University of Utah Press, Salt Lake City.

Paisley Caves: 14,500 Years of Human Occupations in the Northern Great Basin

Ancient human copolites (dried feces) directly radiocarbon dated to 14,500 years ago have been recovered from Pleistocene aged deposits containing artifacts and extinct megafaunal remains in the Paisley 5 Mile Point Caves in south central Oregon. Their human origins verified by the extraction of ancient DNA, these are currently the oldest directly dated human remains in the Western Hemisphere. This paper provides an update on the progress of multidisciplinary scientific investigations of this unique site and the many kinds of perishable and nonperishable items preserved there. The evidence indicates the first site occupants were broad-range hunter-gathers well adapted to the Northern Great Basin?s high desert environment of the late Pleistocene.

Daniel J. Joyce

Pre-Clovis mammoth and mastodon exploitation sites in Southeast Wisconsin are reviewed and compared with other mammoth butchery sites in North America. The Schaefer (47Kn252), Hebior (47Kn265), Mud Lake (47Kn246) mammoths and the Fenske (47Kn 240) mastodon provide definative evidence of megafauna exploitation during the pre-Clovis period.  These sites span 13,450 - 11,200 14C yr B.P. ending just as the classic Clovis culture is beginning.

The environment and timing of this pre-Clovis adaptation to a recently deglaciated environment are explored using environmental data and climatic models. The timing of entry of Paleoamericans into the Western Great Lakes is reviewed and the question of economic adaptation and land use patterns to this landscape is  addressed. Comparison to Clovis mammoth site geomorphic settings is made, and the proposed association of these butchery sites with a local lithic complex is analyzed.

Evidence from these pre-Clovis sites makes a case for an early megafauna subsistence strategy. Although amended in recent years by more generalized foraging models, mammoth butchery is still a hallmark of some subsequent Clovis sites. Is the Great Lakes Proboscidean exploitation pattern different from others? Finally, a proposed relationship between these pre-Clovis butchered megafauna sites and the subsequent Clovis culture is put forth.

Relevant Publications:

Joyce, D. J. (2003) Chronology and Current Research on the Schaefer Mammoth (?Mammuthus primigenius), Kenosha County, Wisconsin. 3rd International Mammoth Conference, Dawson City Yukon Territory, Canada.

Joyce, D. J. (2003) Chronology and Current Research on the Schaefer Mammoth (?Mammuthus
primigenius), Kenosha County, Wisconsin USA. Paper presented at the 3rd International Mammoth
Conference, Dawson City, Yukon, Canada.

Joyce, D. J. ( 2006) Chronology and New Research on the Schaefer Mammoth (?Mammuthus
primigenius), Kenosha County, Wisconsin, USA. Quaternary International 142–143:44–57.

Adaptations along the Ice Margin: Analysis, Interpretation and Implications of Four Pre-Clovis Megafauna Butchery Sites in the Western Great Lakes Region

Dan Joyce is Director of the Kenosha Public Museums in Kenosha, Wisconsin. For 25 years he was Senior Curator of Collections and Exhibits/archaeologist at the museums. He holds degrees in American (Military) History, Anthropology and Museum Studies from Southern Illinois and Eastern New Mexico University.

He has been a museum professional for thirty-four years and archaeologist for twenty-five years.  His interests are Paleoamericans, lithic technology and the historic contact period. He has published nearly fifty articles on military history and archaeology.  He is an elected  fellow of the Company of Military Historians.

His museum work includes positions at the Southern Illinois University Museum in Carbondale, Illinois, Field Museum in Chicago, the Blackwater Draw Archaeological Museum and the Miles Anthropological Museum in Portales, New Mexico, the Kenosha Public Museum, The Civil War Museum and the Dinosaur Discovery Museum in Kenosha Wisconsin . 

James P. Kennett

Born and raised in New Zealand; Ph.D. (1965) and D.Sc. (1976) from Victoria University of Wellington; Immigrated with Diana to the U.S. in 1966; Post-doctoral researcher University of Southern California; Academic positions at Florida State University, Graduate School of Oceanography at University of Rhode Island, and University of California Santa Barbara; Director Marine Science Institute, UCSB (1987-1997). Currently Professor Emeritus and Research Professor, UCSB.

Kennett’s 50 year research career has ranged widely in the Earth Sciences: marine geology and paleoceanography; Cenozoic and Quaternary climate history; micropaleontology and marine Biotic Evolution; methane hydrates and climate change; and most recently, the YDB Cosmic Impact Hypothesis.

Research was primarily focused on Cenozoic Earth System history using multiple analysis on the marine sediment record. The main purpose has been to better understand the development of the Earth System through time and processes involved in this dynamic evolution.

Kennett has enjoyed the publishing, with multiple colleagues and students, of 264 articles in refereed journals and edited volumes; 4 books includes Marine Geology; 16 edited volumes; 42 published reports and more than 300 published abstracts. Kennett is especially proud of the accomplishments of his numerous former graduate students.

Allen West, retired geophysicist, has been conducting experiments since 2005 with a group of international colleagues related to the YDB cosmic impact hypothesis (12.9 ka), including its potential relation to megafaunal extinctions and human cultural change.

Ted Bunch, a petrologist and geologist, had a long career with NASA studying, among other things, materials produced by cosmic impact. Since 2006, he has been investigating the morphology and geochemistry of YDB impact spherules and high-temperature melt-glass.

Relevant Publications:

Anderson, D., Goodyear, A., Kennett, J. and A. West (2011) Multiple lines of evidence for possible Human population decline/settlement reorganization during the early Younger Dryas. Quaternary International 242(2): 570-583.

Kennett, D.J., Kennett, J.P., West, A., Mercer, C., Que Hee, S., Bement, L., Bunch, T., Sellers, M. and W. Wolbach (2009) Nanodiamonds in the Younger Dryas Boundary Sediment Layer. Science 323, p.94.

Firestone, R., West, A., Kennett, J.P., Becker, L., Bunch, T., et al. (2007) Evidence for an extraterrestrial impact 12,900 years ago that contributed to the megafaunal extinctions and the Younger Dryas cooling. PNAS 104(41): 16016-16021. Plus a 20-page supplement.

The Younger Dryas Boundary (YDB) Cosmic Impact Hypothesis, 12.9 ka: A Review

The abrupt onset of the Younger Dryas cooling episode at ~12.9 ka was marked by a complex array of rapid and potentially linked changes in the Earth’s environmental and biotic systems. Especially intriguing is the close and collective association of North American continental-scale ecological reorganization, megafaunal extinctions, and human adaptive and population shifts.

Various hypotheses have been proposed to account for these changes, including the Younger Dryas Boundary (YDB) Cosmic Impact Hypothesis. Our contribution will review the status of this hypothesis, summarizing evidence consistent with atmospheric impact (aerial bursts) including the character, geochemistry, and distribution of nanodiamonds and extreme high-temperature products: impact spherules, melt-glass objects, microtektites; and other proxies. We will also review evidence consistent with the YDB hypothesis, including widespread biomass burning at the YDB (e.g. peaks in charcoal and aciniform soot), hydrographic reorganization, extinctions, biotic adaptations and human cultural change.

David Kilby

David Kilby received his PhD in Anthropology from the University of New Mexico, Albuquerque in 2008 and became an Assistant Professor of Anthropology at Eastern New Mexico University that same year.

David’s academic interests include lithic artifact analysis, geoarchaeology, hunter-gatherer ecology, Paleoindians, and Southwestern prehistory.  In pursuing these interests he has had the opportunity to participate in fieldwork and research at some of the classic western Paleoindian sites, including Blackwater Draw, Murray Springs, Mockingbird Gap, Folsom, and the Rio Rancho Folsom site, as well as Boca Negra Wash, Deann’s Site, Demolition Road, Nall Playa, and others including the newly identified Beach cache in North Dakota.

Dr. Kilby’s current research is focused on Clovis and Folsom archaeology of the American West, Southwest and Plains. His dissertation research consisted of an investigation of Clovis caches where he systematically compared cache assemblages to those of Clovis kill and camp sites towards interpreting their roles in Clovis economy and landscape use. David Kilby is currently investigating a number of archaeological and geoarchaeological aspects of Blackwater Draw Locality No. 1, the Clovis site, and has directed the ENMU Archaeological Field School there for the past two years.

David Kilby and Bruce Huckell are currently editing the book “An Extraordinary Collection of Chipped Stone Artifacts:”Recent Research on Clovis Caches, to be published by University of New Mexico in 2012.

Bruce B. Huckell (PhD Arizona 1990) has been involved in the investigation of Clovis sites in Arizona, New Mexico, Washington, and North Dakota over the past 40 years.  A flintknapper, he has also replicated Clovis tool types and employed them experimentally on elephants and bison.   (Department of Anthropology and Maxwell Museum of Anthropology, University of New Mexico, Albuquerque, NM 87131, USA)

Relevant Publications:

Kilby, J. D. (In prep.). Direction and Distance in Clovis Caching: The Movement of People and Lithic Raw Materials on the Clovis-age Landscape, In “An Extraordinary Collection of Chipped Stone Artifacts:” Recent Research on Clovis Caches, ed. by B. Huckell and D. Kilby, Albuquerque, University of New Mexico Press.

Buchanan, B., D. Kilby, B. Huckell, M. O’Brien, and M. Collard (2012) A Morphometric Assessment of the Function of Cached Clovis Points. PLoS ONE 7(1): http://dx.plos.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0030530.

Huckell, B, D. Kilby, M. Boulanger, and M. Glascock (2011) Sentinel Butte: Neutron Activation Analysis of White River Group Chert From a Primary Source and Artifacts From a Clovis Cache in North Dakota, USA. Journal of Archaeological Science 38:965-976. 

Clovis Caches: An Update and Consideration of Their Role in the Colonization of New Lands

Scattered sporadically across much of the American West are tight clusters of Clovis artifacts identified as prehistoric caches.  Clovis caches consist of bifaces, projectile points, blades, flakes, cores, bone and ivory rods, and occasionally other items that appear to have been carefully set aside rather than used and discarded. Caches potentially provide snapshots of working Clovis tool kits rather than discarded and broken items from kill or camp sites. Further, they provide clues to the logistical problems encountered by highly mobile Ice Age peoples, and reflect the strategies for solving them. 

As the defining attributes of Clovis caches become clearer, caches are recognized and reported with increasing frequency, in the form of new discoveries in the field and among existing collections. This paper provides an overview of currently known Clovis caches, ranging from assemblages discovered as much as 50 years ago to less familiar collections just coming to light, and examines variation in their contents and context. Their geographic distributions, along with geologic origins of the lithic raw materials they contain, provide clues to the roles they played in prehistoric stone tool and subsistence economies and to their role in the process of colonizing the North American continent.

Rolfe D. Mandel

Rolfe earned his Ph.D. from the University of Kansas in 1991. He currently is Senior Scientist and Executive Director of the Odyssey Archaeological Research Program at the Kansas Geological Survey, and Professor in the Department of Anthropology at the University of Kansas.

Rolfe has spent over 30 years working with archaeologists on projects throughout the United States and eastern Mediterranean. As Executive Director of Odyssey, he is in charge of a research program that employs geoscientific methods to search for the earliest evidence of people in the Central Great Plains. Rolfe is especially interested in soils and landscape evolution, and the effects of geologic processes on the archaeological record. From 1999-2004 he was Editor-in-Chief of Geoarchaeology: An International Journal, and his work has been published in a many books and refereed journals. He edited the book Geoarchaeology in the Great Plains, published in 2000 by The University of Oklahoma Press.

The Geological Society of America has recognized Rolfe’s achievements with two prestigious awards: the George Rapp Award for outstanding contributions to the interdisciplinary field of archaeological geology, and the 2010 Kirk Bryan Award for Excellence.

Relevant Publications:

Mandel, R.D.2008. Buried Paleoindian-age landscapes in stream valleys of the Central Plains, USA. Geomorphology 101:342-361.

Mandel, R.D. 2006. The effects of late Quaternary landscape evolution on the archaeology of Kansas. In Kansas Archaeology, edited by R.J. Hoard and W.E. Banks, pp. 46-75. University Press of Kansas, Lawrence, Kansas.

Mandel, R.D. 2000. The history of geoarchaeological research in the Central Plains of Kansas and northern Oklahoma. In Geoarchaeology in the Great Plains, edited by R.D. Mandel, pp. 79-136. University of Oklahoma Press, Norman.

A Geoarchaeological Approach to the Search for Pre-Clovis Sites in North America: An Example from the Central Plains

Over the past decade the search for Pre-Clovis sites in North America have involved determining where soils and sedimentary deposits dating to the terminal Pleistocene occur in landscapes. From an archaeological perspective, it is reasonable to assume that sites predating Clovis will be found only where deposits and associated soils old enough to contain them are preserved. A corollary is that where thick deposits post-dating ca. 13 ka are present, evidence of those sites will not be found on the modern land surface. In this paper, I describe a systematic study of late-Quaternary landscape evolution in the Central Plains that documented deeply buried paleosols representing Pre-Clovis-age landscapes. This information is being used to target landform sediment assemblages with high potential for stratified Pre-Clovis cultural deposits. The Coffey site in northeastern Kansas will be presented as a case study. At Coffey, an archaeological component is associated with a buried paleosol developed in the Severance Formation, a lithostatigraphic unit that aggraded between ca. 38 and 18 ka. The geoarchaeological approach presented in this paper has great potential for detecting the elusive Pre-Clovis record of the Central Plains and elsewhere.

Connie Mulligan

Connie earned her PhD from Yale University, Department of Molecular Biophysics and Biochemistry, in 1990. She has held postdoctoral and research biologist positions at the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute, Smithsonian Center for Materials Research and Education, and the National Institute of Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism. She is currently Professor of Anthropology and Associate Director of the Genetics Institute at the University of Florida. Connie is interested in human evolution in terms of population history as well as human adaptation. Her population history projects focus on peopling of the Americas and the dispersal of anatomically modern humans out of Africa. Her adaptation projects take a biocultural approach to investigate the genetic, epigenetic, and cultural risk factors for hypertension and the effect of maternal trauma on infant health. She has directed collecting expeditions in Panama, Yemen, Mongolia and the Democratic Republic of Congo (with funding from the National Science Foundation, National Institutes of Health and University of Florida). Connie has published more than 50 articles in peer-reviewed journals.

Andrew Kitchen earned his PhD from the University of Florida, Department of Anthropology, in 2008. He was a postdoctoral fellow at the Center for Infectious Disease Dynamics at Pennsylvania State University for three years and he is a new assistant professor in the Department of Anthropology at the University of Iowa.

Relevant Publications:

Mulligan C.J., Kitchen A, Miyamoto MM (2008) Updated three-stage model for the peopling of the Americas. PLoS ONE 3(9):e3199.

Kitchen D, Miyamoto MM, Mulligan C.J. (2008) A three-stage colonization model for the peopling of the Americas. PLoS ONE 3(2):e1596.

Mulligan C.J., Kitchen A, Miyamoto MM (2006) Comment on “Population size does not influence mitochondrial genetic diversity in animals”. Science 314:1390.

Three Stage Colonization Model for the Peopling of the Americas

We have proposed a three-stage colonization model for the Americas that integrates genetic data with existing archaeological, geological, and paleoecological data. Our results support a recent, rapid expansion into the Americas ~16kya that was preceded by a long period of population stability and genetic diversification in greater Beringia and occurred after divergence from an ancestral Asian population ~ 40kya. Two areas of discussion have recently emerged with respect to the genetic data. 1) How does choice of a mitochondrial substitution rate influence estimates for an entry date to the Americas and occupation time of Beringia, and which rate is correct? In general, ‘fast’ substitution rates support a post-LGM entry to the Americas and a shorter occupation of Beringia compared to ‘slow’ substitution rates. 2) What is the relationship of founder population size and subsequent levels of migration between Asia and the Americas, and what is the correct balance between the two? In general, large founder population/low rates of migration and small founder population/high rates of migration are comparable in terms of the resultant Native American genetic diversity. Our results, in combination with constraints provided by archaeological, geological and climatological data, support a ‘fast’ substitution rate and large founder population/low rate of migration.

Walter Neves

Professor Walter Neves is the founder of and lead-scientist at the Laboratório de Estudos Evolutivos Humanos (Human Evolutionary Studies Laboratory) at the Biology Institute of the University of São Paulo. During the course of his career, he has directed his research towards a wide variety of topics, including the early human occupation of Lagoa Santa, Central Brazil; human occupation and adaptations of the shellmound builders on Brazil’s southeast coast; quality of life among Atacama oasis populations (north Chile); and the diet and nutritional status of living Ribeirinho populations in northern Brazil’s Amazon. His most important line of research has been the study of early human groups from Lagoa Santa and their relevance to understanding early human dispersion into the continent. For the past decade Neves has led a long-term archaeological project that located and excavated many new archaeological and paleontological sites in the area, and generated a new absolute chronology for the Lagoa Santa collections housed in museums in Brazil and Denmark. His research in Lagoa Santa has shown that Early American population share a different cranial morphological pattern that is distinct from Late Native Americans, which led him to propose that the continent must have been settled in two discrete human dispersion waves. This research has been published in renowned international journals such as PNAS, PLoS One, American Journal of Physical Anthropology and Journal of Human Evolution.

Dr. Mark Hubbe is an Associate Professor at the Instituto de Investigaciones Arqueológicas y Museo, Universidad Católica del Norte, Chile. He has been working with Professor Neves since 2010. His research is broadly focused on the morphology of early human groups.

Danilo V. Bernardo is a PhD candidate at the Laboratório de Estudos Evolutivos Humanos, Universidade de São Paulo, Brazil. His research has focused on the morphological affinities of early human groups from Lagoa Santa.

André Strauss is a PhD candidate at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, Germany. Since 2011 he has been leading new excavations in Lagoa Santa. His research in Lagoa Santa has focused on the burial practices of the local early human cemeteries.

Dr. Astolfo Araujo is Adjunct Professor at the Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology of the University of São Paulo. As a geoarchaeologist, interested in early human settlements in Central Brazil, he has been one of the Co-PIs of the Lagoa Santa project led by Professor Neves.

Dr. Renato Kipnis is a Co-PI on the Lagoa Santa project led by Professor Neves, where he has been the lead archaeologist excavating the Lapa do Santo rockshelter.

Relevant Publications:

Hubbe, Mark, Katerina Harvati and Walter Neves (2011) Paleoamerican Morphology in the Context of European and East Asian Late Pleistocene Variation: Implications for Human Dispersion Into the New World. American Journal of Physical Anthropology 144:442–453.

Hubbe, Mark, Walter Neves and Katerina Harvati (2010) Testing Evolutionary and Dispersion Scenarios for the Settlement of the New World. PLoS ONE 5(6):e11105

Neves, Walter, Mark Hubbe, Luı´s Beethoven Pilo´ (2007) Early Holocene human skeletal remains from Sumidouro Cave, Lagoa Santa, Brazil: History of Discoveries, Geological and Chronological Context, and Comparative Cranial Morphology. Journal of Human Evolution 52:16-30.

Early Human Occupation of Lagoa Santa, Central Brazil: Implications for the Dispersion and Adaptation of Early Human Groups in South America.

The presence of human groups in the Americas by the end of the Pleistocene has been demonstrated in numerous archaeological sites in North, Meso and South America. However, the number of early sites associated with human remains is very limited, and to date it is difficult to discuss the processes of the continent’s initial occupation in terms of the biological characteristics of early Americans. The Lagoa Santa region, in Central Brazil is a unique region in the Americas, because it presents dozens of early sites, some of which support the evidence for the human presence in the continent by 12 kyr BP. Since its initial excavation, during 19th century, the Lagoa Santa caves and rockshelters generated over two hundred burials that date between 11.0 and 7.0 kyr BP. Here, we present a review of the biological affinities between these groups, as well as their cultural and archaeological context, resulting from our long term project in the region during the past decade. Using multivariate analysis to compare their cranial morphological affinities with other worldwide groups, we demonstrate that the Lagoa Santa remains share the same morphological pattern seen in other early populations in the Americas and other regions of the planet, a pattern that is significantly distinct from the typical morphology observed among Late Holocene Native Americans.  We also explore the notion that these populations, despite being strict hunter-gatherers, showed remarkable cultural diversity, especially when burial practices are considered. In conclusion, the biological and cultural contextualization of the Lagoa Santa early human presence sheds light on important aspects of the origin and adaptation of New World populations at the end of the Pleistocene and early Holocene.

Vladimir Pitulko

Vladimir Pitulko earned his Ph. D. from the Institute for the History of Material Culture, Russian Academy of Sciences (IHMC RAS), St. Petersburg, in 1995. Since 1988, he works for the Paleolithic Department of IHMC. His current position is a senior research scientist.

Vladimir participated in a number of projects in the Russian Arctic. Starting 1989, he conducts his own research. Since 2000, he leads Zhokhov-2000 project supported by Rock Foundation, New York, USA, and Russian Academy of Sciences. This work is focused on archaeology, Quaternary paleoenvironment and geology of New Siberian Islands and adjacent mainland. Excavations of Early Holocene Zhokhov site (New Siberian Islands) and the northernmost Upper Paleolithic Yana RHS site yeilded the most important results.

Vladimir’s publications include more than 30 articles in refereed journals and edited volumes. He authored two books - The Zhokhov Site published in 1998 by Dm. Bulanin, St. Petersburg and Geoarchaeology and Radiocarbon Chronology of the Stone Age of the North-East Asia published in 2010 by Nauka, St Petersburg (with Elena Pavlova). Vladimir is also a co-editor (with William W. Fitzhugh) for the monograph by Leonid P. Khlobystin Taimyr. The Archaeology of Northernmost Eurasia published in 2005 by NMNH, Smithsonian Institution.

Pavel Nikolskiy, Ph. D. is a paleontologist and stratigrapher in the Geological Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Moscow, Russia. His research focuses on a deeper understanding of the Quaternary arctic Beringia mammal evolution and biostratigraphy, some of his publications have engaged a woolly mammoth extinction problem.

Aleksandr Basilyan is a geologist and stratigrapher in the Geological Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Moscow, Russia. His research focuses on a deeper understanding of the Quaternary arctic Beringia geology and stratigraphy.

Elena Pavlova is a research scientist working for the Arctic & Antarctic Research Institute in St. Petersburg, Russia (Dept. of the Geography of Polar Regions). She has a broad experience of field research in the Russian Arctic, with special focus on paleoenvironment studies.

Relevant publications:

Pitulko, V. V. and P. A. Nikolskiy (2012) The Extinction of the Woolly Mammoth and the Archaeological Record in Northeastern Asia. World Archaeology. 44 (1) (In Press)

Basilyan, A.E., M.A. Anisimov, P.A. Nikolskiy and V.V. Pitulko (2011) Wooly mammoth mass accumulation next to the Paleolithic Yana RHS site, Arctic Siberia: its geology, age, and relation to past human activity. Journal of Archaeological Science 38:2461–2474.

Pitulko, V. V., P.A. Nikolsky, E.Y. Girya, A.E. Basilyan, V.E. Tumskoy, S.A. Koulakov, S.N. Astakhov, E.Y. Pavlova and M.A. Anisimov (2004) The Yana RHS Site: Humans in the Arctic before the Last Glaciation. Science 303:52 –56.

Human habitation in the arctic Western Beringia prior the LGM

For years, the initial stage of human habitation within Western Beringia was supposed to be not older than the Late Upper Paleolithic,with firm dates younger than the LGM. Discovery of Yana RHS doubled length of the record of human habitation in NE Asia. Human occupations at Yana site pre-date the LGM and show that the area was inhabited almost 30,000 14C years ago. This is the earliest evidence known in the Arctic. The site yielded a unique evidence for Early Upper Paleolithic culture of this remote part of the world. Fauna remains that come from the site belong to almost all species of the local Late Pleistocene habitat. Reindeer, bison, and horse are most numerous. Three major contexts compose the Yana archaeological complex. Two of them are lithic contexts called correspondingly “macro tools” (cores, scrapers, large tools) and “micro tools” (small scrapers, chisel-like pieces, backed blades but almost no burins). The third one is presented by well developed bone/ivory industry that includes hunting equipment, sewing tool kit, and other implements. Numerous personal ornaments and decorated artifacts demonstrate highly developed complicated symbolic behavior.  This article presents the data on geology, radiocarbon dating and artifact collection of the Yana site.

Douglas Owsley

Douglas Owsley, Division Head for Physical Anthropology at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History in Washington, D.C., is considered one of the foremost forensic anthropologists at work today. He has identified remains from news-making crime scenes, mass disasters, and war zones including Jeffrey Dahmer’s first victim, the Waco Branch Davidian compound, the 9/11 Pentagon plane crash, and war dead from the former Yugoslavia.
He is fascinated with the wealth of information that can be recovered by studying the human skeleton, not just the cause of death, but also details about the life of a person. In addition to forensic case work, he is conducting extensive research on historic and prehistoric populations from North America. These include the remains of 17th century colonists, Civil War soldiers, such as the crew of the H.L. Hunley, and ancient Americans. Highlights of his work on Jamestown Island are featured in an exhibition at the National Museum of Natural History entitled Written in Bone: Forensic Files of the 17th Century Chesapeake.
Dr. Owsley was instrumental in advocating for the right of scientists to analyze the 9,300 year-old Kennewick Man skeleton discovered along the Columbia River in Washington State. Without his intervention and subsequent analysis the important information provided by the Kennewick Man remains would more than likely have been lost to science. He is currently editing a volume on what has been learned from this important discovery.
Doug received his B.S. degree in Zoology from the University of Wyoming and his Ph.D. in Physical Anthropology from the University of Tennessee.

Relevant publications:

Jantz, R. L. and D. W. Owsley ( 2001) Variation among Early North American Crania. American Journal of Physical Anthropology 114 (2): 146-155.

Owsley, D. W. and D. R. Hunt (2001) Clovis and Early Archaic Crania from the Anzick Site (24PA506), Park County, Montana. Plains Anthropologist 46 (176): 115-124.

Van Vark, G. N., D. Kuizenga, F. L. Williams, R. L. Jantz, and D. W. Owsley (2003) Kennewick and Luzia: Lessons from the European Upper Paleolithic. American Journal of Physical Anthropology 121 (2): 181-188.

Bioarchaeological Biographies of Ancient Americans

This overview will highlight what the bones reveal about Paleoamericans from the western half of the United States. Complete and partial skeletons of approximately 30 individuals dated 8000 RC yr. BP and older have been examined including the Spirit Cave Mummy from Nevada, the Horn Shelter No.2 burials from Texas, San Miguel Man from California, and Kennewick Man from Washington. Detailed information on preservation and taphonomy, demography, bone and dental pathology, and cranial and postcranial measurements have been compiled and analyzed to document the occurrence of traumatic injuries, infections, arthritic conditions, oral health, diet, activity patterns and behavior, and population origins and relationships. Although the sample is limited and derived from diverse localities, it provides a foundation for reflecting upon the lives of ancient Americans.

Ben A. Potter

Ben earned his PhD degree from University of Alaska Fairbanks in 2005, and has been working in eastern Beringian archaeology for 18 years. He is committed to anthropological archaeology, working to integrate lithics, fauna, site structural and intersite variability as avenues to explore high latitude adaptations, human-environment interactions, and colonization of Beringia. Ben’s targeted excavations at late Pleistocene and early Holocene sites of Upward Sun River, Mead, Gerstle River, and Teklanika West have provided important datasets to address intrasite variability and economic change. He has also directed several large-scale projects throughout Alaska in the last 10 years, leading to the discovery of over 300 new sites, including 111 buried prehistoric sites (these include 19 late Pleistocene components). His projects have been funded by U.S. National Science Foundation, Bureau of Land Management, National Park Service, Wenner-Gren, and others. Ben’s publications include 20 peer-reviewed journal articles and edited volume chapters, including Science, American Antiquity, Arctic, Journal of Archaeological Science, Environmental Archaeology, and Arctic Anthropology, as well as 72 professional reports on surveys, excavations, and predictive modeling throughout Alaska.

Relevant Publications:

Potter, Ben A., Joel D. Irish, Joshua D. Reuther, Carol Gelvin-Reymiller, and Vance T. Holliday (2011) A Terminal Pleistocene Child Cremation and Residential Structure from Eastern Beringia. Science 331(6020):1058-1062.

Potter, Ben A. (2011) Late Pleistocene and Early Holocene Assemblage Variability in Central Alaska. In From the Yenisei to the Yukon: Interpreting Lithic Assemblage Variability in Late Pleistocene/Early Holocene Beringia, edited by Ted E. Goebel and Ian Buvit. Texas A&M Press, College Station, pp. 215-233.

Potter, Ben A. (2010) Archaeological Patterning in Northeast Asia and Northwest North America: An Examination of the Dene-Yeniseian Hypothesis. Anthropological Papers of the University of Alaska, New Series Vol 5(1-2):138-167.

Technology and Economy Among The Earliest Prehistoric Foragers in Interior Eastern Beringia

In the past decade, the archaeological record of eastern Interior Beringia (Alaska and Yukon Territory) has seen a transformation in our understanding of the earliest foragers. This presentation focuses on new sites, new data and new interpretations of technology and economy from the region, including emerging models of landscape use and settlement systems. Patterns of continuity and discontinuity from adjacent regions (western Beringia and central North America) are evaluated. Clovis ancestors may be present in Beringia, but they are not easily distinguished through material culture patterns. Other avenues of inquiry with different assumptions are needed to understand the anthropological problem of the colonization of the New World. Recent theoretical approaches incorporating technological organization and behavioral ecology have provided ways to explore this early record.

Thomas W. Stafford, Jr.

Stafford is a geochronologist, Quaternary geologist and biogeochemist working worldwide on the chronology and stratigraphy of late Pleistocene and early Holocene sites having human and extinct animal records.  He received his Ph.D. in 1984 from the University of Arizona and did postdoctoral research at the Carnegie Geophysical Laboratories and the National Bureau of Standards.  His research emphasizes the interdisciplinary uses of physics, chemistry, paleobiology, archaeology, geology and the medical sciences to understanding the origins humans in the New World and recovering paleoecological records by using organic biogeochemistry, aDNA, and proteonomics that are combined with classic Quaternary geology.

Relevant Publications:

Waters, Michael R. and Thomas W. Stafford, Jr. (2007) Redefining the Age of Clovis: Implications for the Peopling of the Americas. Science 315: 1122-1126.

Waters, Michael R., Thomas W. Stafford, Jr., H. Gregory McDonald, Carl Gustafson, Morten Rasmussen, Enrico Cappellini, Jesper V. Olsen, Damian Szklarcyk, Lars Juhl Jensen, M. Thomas P. Gilbert, and Eske Willerslev (2011) Pre-Clovis Mastodon Hunting 13,800 Years Ago at the Manis Site, Washington.  Science 334:351-353.

Dennis L. Jenkins, Loren G. Davis, Thomas W. Stafford, Jr., Paula F. Campos, Bryan Hockett, George T. Jones, Linda Scott Cummings, Chad Yost, Thomas J. Connolly, Robert M. Yohe II, Summer C. Gibbons, Maanasa Raghavan, Morten Rasmussen, Johanna L. A. Paijmans, Michael Hofreiter, M. Thomas P. Gilbert, Eske Willerslev. (In press)  11,100 14C Yr. B.P. Western Stemmed Projectile Points and Human Coprolites from the Paisley Caves, Oregon. Science, in press.

Geochronology, Stratigraphy and Taphonomy as the Foundations for Pre-Clovis Research

Time, followed closely by stratigraphy and taphonomy, are the arbiters of pre-Clovis research. Only 100 years might separate an important Clovis site from a paradigm shifting pre-Clovis discovery.  Now that the Clovis-First barrier has been broken, accurate 14C measurements are increasingly crucial to interpreting the peopling of the Americas.  With greater geologic age, 14C chronologies are increasingly affected by geological contaminants, decreasing numbers of dateable materials, and chemical decay, especially of vertebrate fossils.  Loss of stratigraphic integrity and clarity through bioturbation, erosion and geochemical degradation create palimpsests from previously obvious archaeological records.  The absence of large lithics, rare and uncharacteristic microlithics or exclusive use of bone preordains that early sites may go unrecognized and that taphonomy will become increasingly important for differentiating natural versus human-origin sites.

These factors demand new approaches to geochronology and geology because pre-11, 000 RC yr records are unlike younger ones.  Millimeter-resolution stratigraphy, genus-level identification of fossils, and molecular-level AMS 14C dating with ±15 yr precisions must replace current dating and excavation techniques.  As successive age barriers are broken for first human presence, scientists must acknowledge that ever-older occupations are possible.  These principles are described using 14C dating experiments and sites across North America.

Dennis Stanford

Dennis Stanford is Curator of North and South American Paleolithic, Asian Paleolithic and Western United States archaeological collections and Director of the Paleoindian/Paleoecology Program at the Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D. C.

His research interests include the origin and development of New World Paleo-Indian cultures in relation to changing climate and ecosystems during the terminal Pleistocene, interdisciplinary Quaternary studies, stone tool technology, and experimental and public archaeology. He has conducted field work in Siberia, China, Alaska, the Rocky Mountains, Plains and Southeastern States.

Relevant Publications:

Lowery, Darrin L., Margaret Jodry and Dennis Stanford (2012) Clovis Coastal Zone Width Variation: A Possible Solution for Early Paleoindian Population Disparity Along the Mid-Atlantic Coast, USA. The Journal of Island and Coastal Archaeology, 7(1): 53-63.

Stanford, Dennis and Bruce Bradley (2012) Across Atlantic Ice: The Origins of America's Clovis Culture. Berkeley: University of California Press.

The Chesapeake Bifaces: Evidence for an LGM Occupation of the Mid-Atlantic Region of North America?

Mastodon remains dated to 22,760 RCYBP and a bifacial laurel leaf knife were recovered from 250 feet below sea level on the outer continental shelf of Virginia.  This paper reports the results of our research concerning this find, and on-going survey of the extensive archaeological collections of the Smithsonian and other repositories including large private collections that are representative of the Chesapeake Bay watershed.  We have located twelve additional laurel leaf specimens including four found by watermen while working on the continental shelf.  This paper also presents data from three upland archeological sites dated to the same time, all suggesting an LGM occupation of Eastern North America.

Michael R. Waters

Dr. Michael Waters is the Director of the Center for the Study of the First Americans and Executive Director of the North Star Archaeological Research Program.  He is known for his expertise in First American studies and geoarchaeology.  Waters has worked on more than sixty archaeological field projects in the United States, Mexico, Russia, Jamaica, and Yemen.  His current research projects include the Debra L. Friedkin Site, Texas; Hogeye Clovis Cache site, Texas; Coats-Hines Mastodon site, Tennessee; Page-Ladson site, Florida; and the Hueyatlaco site, Mexico.  He has authored or co-authored numerous journal articles and book chapters and is the author of Principles of Geoarchaeology: A North American Perspective.  This was the first book to discuss the role of geological studies in archaeology.  Waters and his colleagues also recently published Clovis Lithic Technology: Investigation of a Stratified Workshop at the Gault Site, Texas in 2011.  This book provides the first comprehensive study of a Clovis workshop where stone tools were made 13,000 years ago.  Waters received the 2003 Kirk Bryan Award and the 2004 Rip Rapp Archaeological Geology Award given by the Geological Society of America.  He was elected a Fellow of the Geological Society of America in 2004.

Relevant Publications:

Waters, M. R., Thomas W. Stafford Jr., H. Gregory McDonald, Carl Gustafson, Morten Rasmussen, Enrico Cappellini, Jesper V. Olsen, Damian Szklarczyk, Lars Juhl Jensen, M. Thomas P. Gilbert, Eske Willerslev (2011) Pre-Clovis Mastodon Hunting 13,800 Years Ago at the Manis Site, Washington. Science 334:351-353.

Waters, M. R., Steven L. Forman, Thomas A. Jennings, Lee C. Nordt, Steven G. Driese, Joshua M. Feinberg, Joshua L. Keene, Jessi Halligan, Anna Lindquist, James Pierson, Charles T. Hallmark, Michael B. Collins, James E. Wiederhold (2011) The Buttermilk Creek Complex and the Origins of Clovis at the Debra L. Friedkin Site, Texas Science 331:1599-1603.

Waters, M. R., T. W. Stafford, Jr. (2007) Redefining the Age of Clovis: Implications for the Peopling of the Americas. Science 315:1122-1126.

In Search of the First Americans?What the Friedkin Site, Texas, and Manis Site, Washington Tell us About the First Americans

The Friedkin site, located in central Texas, is a stratified site with Late Prehistoric, Archaic and Paleoindian horizons.  The Paleoindian sequence includes Golondrina, Dalton, Midland, Folsom, and Clovis horizons.  Beneath the Clovis levels at the site are over 18,000 artifacts including bifaces, blades, bladelets, and other tools dating between 13,500 and 15,500 yr B.P.  At the Manis site in northwestern Washington, the tip of a bone projectile point is embedded into the rib of a mastodon dated to 13,800 yr B.P.  This evidence, combined with the evidence from other sites as well as human genetic data, provides a new understanding of the late Pleistocene colonization of the Americas and the origins of Clovis.   

Eske Willerslev

Eske Willerslev (EW) is director for Centre of Excellence in GeoGenetics and the National CryoBank and Sequencing Facility, situated at the National History Museum and the Biological Institute, University of Copenhagen. The centre currently facilitates 50 people. During his PhD, EW established the first ancient DNA facility in Denmark, which, despite its small size, rapidly became internationally recognized for, among other things, establishing the fields of ancient sedimentary and ice core genetics, which have since become world-wide scientific disciplines. After finishing his PhD studentship EW obtained a prestigious Wellcome Trust Fellowship to join the Department of Zoology at the University of Oxford, UK – a world-leading institution in many fields of research, including ancient DNA. Recently, at the age of 33, EW was called back to University of Copenhagen to commence the position of Full Professor, first at the Niels Bohr Institute and later at the National History Museum and Biological Institute. In addition, he has been awarded the prestigious position of Visiting Professor by Oxford University. EW is an internationally recognised researcher in the fields of ancient DNA, DNA degradation, and evolutionary biology. He has 20 publications in Science and Nature, and 134 publications in other high profile peer review journals such as The Lancet; Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS); Current Biology; American Journal of Human Genetics; Systematic Biology; Molecular Biology and Evolution; TRENDS in Ecology and Evolution; TRENDS in Microbiology; PloS Biology; Genetics; Genome Research; Geology; Nucleic Acid Research; and Proceedings of the Royal Society of London B. His research interests include: palaeoecology, palaeontology, archaeology, domestication, climatology, ancient microbial biology, DNA degradation and repair, exobiology, phylogenetics, molecular evolution, barcoding, and genomics. EW has served as a reviewer for various grant agencies and journals including the NSF (US), Nature; Science; and PNAS. EW is an invited member of the International Mars Cyroscout drilling team (NASA), and scientific organizer for the 3rd and 4th Mars Polar Conferences (NASA). He has been an keynote or invited speaker at 73 international conferences and meetings, has successfully applied for and been awarded 50 large research grants and academic prizes in Denmark, UK, US, Australia, New Zealand and the EU, and has supervised more than 50 MSc students, PhD students, and post doctoral associates. EW has strong collaborations with world leading scientists in Europe, US, Canada, and Russia, and participated in 12 international polar expeditions, 5 of which he led. He has communicated his work to the public through documentary films, books, popular articles, museum exhibitions and numerous national and international TV, newspaper, and magazine interviews.

Relevant Publications:

Parducci L, et al. and Willerslev E. (In press) Glacial Survival of Boreal Trees in Northern Scandinavia. Science (In Press.)

Rasmussen M, et al. and Willerslev E. (2011) An Aboriginal Australian genome reveals separate human dispersals into Asia. Science 334:94-98 .

Waters MR, et al. and Willerslev E. (2011) Pre-Clovis Mastodon Hunting 13,800 Years Ago at the Manis Site, Washington. Science 334, 351-353.

A Genomic Sequence of a Clovis Individual

The Clovis complex is by some scientists considered being the oldest unequivocal evidence of humans in the Americas, dating between ca. 11,050 to 10,800 14C yr B.P. Only one human skeleton has been directly AMS dated to Clovis age and found associated with Clovis technology namely the Anzick human remains from Montana. We are currently sequencing the nuclear and mitochondrial genome from this human skeleton in order to address the origins and descendents of Clovis. I will present the results obtained by our international consortium.